


Perfection

by misreall



Category: Crimson Peak (2015), Gothic Fiction - Fandom, Tom Hiddleston Fandom
Genre: Angst, Body Worship, Bondage, Canon-Typical Violence, Crimson Peak Inspired, Cruelty, Deception, Disabled Character, Drugged Sex, F/M, Fear, Flirting, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Inspired by Art, Kidnapping, Kissing, Light Bondage, Loki - Freeform, Loneliness, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Nudity, Oral Sex, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Sex, Shyness, Sibling Incest, Suicidal Thoughts, Tender Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Voyeurism, crimson peak au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-19 14:31:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 21
Words: 79,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13706409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misreall/pseuds/misreall
Summary: Alice Meadows is an American heiress who is supposed to be husband hunting in London, but she is far more interested in working on her art away from the prying eyes of her family.  Sir Thomas Sharpe is the most beautiful man she has ever seen.  But marriage is not what is on her mind.





	1. Vicerat Artis Aetus

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone reading any of my other stories, yes, I should be working on them, but this came to me and wouldn't let go. 
> 
> Thank you as ever and always to Caffiend.

Alice Meadows had made certain her studio was pleasant, not so easy on a miserable November afternoon, when the already weak London sun was dying away and taking the pitiful warmth it had offered with it.  

She’d had Marsters lay the coal fire earlier in the morning and checked throughout the day to ensure that any damp or chill was out of the air, and that the scuttle was filled should she feel more was needed while she worked.  Indeed, she feared that she may have overdone, as she felt a fine line of perspiration forming along her brow line, dampening the lace at her neck and cuffs of her dress, and most uncomfortably under her bosom as well.

She could only hope that the dark brown cloth would hide most of the evidence of it, and then quietly laughed at herself.  Her companion for the afternoon would no doubt neither notice nor care anything about her appearance, and should he be inclined to observe her, she would be well hidden by her easel.  

As she waited, Alice sat on near the windows, hoping to catch a breeze from the Thames through the imperfectly fitted glass, watching the small amount of traffic on Cheyne Walk and allowed herself to woolgather.  It was still at least a quarter of an hour before Sir Thomas was meant to arrive, and she knew that he would be punctual.  A gentleman was expected to be on time for matters of business and a tad late for social occasions, and regardless of his current status in society, or lack thereof, the baronet always behaved as a gentleman should.

Perhaps more accurately, he behaved gentlemanly with such utter precision as to be a parody of a gentleman.  Not a broad burlesque, but a subtle mockery for an audience of one - himself.  Or so he believed.  

Alice had been enjoying his one man show since the start of the last season when she had arrived in London, her parents hoping against hope that she might find an impoverished nobleman to add some ancestry to their affluence.  

That had been her parent’s hope.   _ Her _ hope, which had been realised, was that out their home she might be able to finally work, truly work, on her art.  The fact that her guardian for her time in London, Miss Gregory, had turned out to be far more permissive - and enamored of the grape - than they had known, had made many of her dreams more attainable.  As had the rather naively generous allowance that they had given her for the duration of her stay in London.

Which was, as her father put it, “As long as it takes to bag your quarry.”  And he had given her the hoard she needed to do so, recognising that her pursuit would be a bit more difficult than that of most of the other American lady buccaneers looking for titled matches.

The fact that she had actually succeeded - in a fashion - would unhappily not please her parents.  Sir Thomas Sharpe was exactly what she had been sent to acquire.  He had an excellent pedigree - being true landed gentry, not simply court - elegant manners, and an impeccable dress sense, the last of which was of special importance to their family.

Additionally, as if he had not already fair teemed with excellent qualities, there was yet more to recommend him.  He was surprisingly bright for a nobleman, all of whom went to university and few of whom seemed to remember the experience beyond a number of ‘larks,’ witty at dinner, an excellent dancer, which was wasted on Alice, and exquisitely, heartbreakingly, beautiful.

The last of which was of great use to her.

Indeed, so heartbreakingly beautiful that if she had been a different woman, and if  _ he  _ had been different in other ways, she might have tried to purchase him to be wrapped and taken home rather than simply leasing his use for a few afternoons.

It was at that moment, when Alice was most distracted by her thoughts of him, that Sir Thomas entered her studio unannounced.  “Miss Meadows,” he said from behind her, his voice light and questioning.

Alice rose slowly, taking her cane up, and gave him a polite smile, “Sir Thomas, my servants are quite appalling, having you find your way up here on your own.  Please forgive them, and me as well.”

“Nothing to be forgiven, Miss Meadows.  This is not precisely a social call, and while it may be one of business it still makes sense for us to do without the niceties.  Now, where shall I disrobe?”

             -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thomas stepped behind the black lacquered Chinoiserie screen that had been set up in a corner of the smallish room and removed his jacket.  

Miss Meadow’s clearly considered herself a real artist and not merely another wealthy girl who had 'accomplishments'.  Her studio was high enough in the building to have decent light, and other than the seat near the windows and his modesty screen, the only furniture in the room was a lowish stool placed before an easel, a table holding a large number of paints and pencils, and an odd, rather high pile of cushions on the floor near the door.

Otherwise, the room was filled with canvases, leaning in some cases five deep along the walls, their faces turned away from him.  On the floor were stacks of paper, some of them sketched upon, others untouched.  

As he prepared he could hear her ungainly steps and the thump of her cane as she seemed to pace back and forth.  Nervous, he had no doubt.  

The firm step, followed by the thump of the cane, followed by a weak, almost dragging step made him shudder with memory.  As with most things he did not care to recall he pushed it away and concentrated on the moment.  On physical things.

Having removed his cravat, boots, and waistcoat, Thomas began on his shirt.  There had been a time when his fingers would have shaken too hard to unbutton himself.  Back in those days, when the idea of being naked before anyone, even himself, had been aborrhent to him, when he had been very young, the women who had first employed him had taken pleasure in performing the task.

A comforting hand over his, and then a shushing noise at his distress, like they might a child, and then they would undress him, admiring his form, smiling gently at his youth and what they thought was his innocent eagerness.  Acting the part of a mother, before he acted the part of their lover.  

His own mother had never been so kind.  She had loathed touching him or -

She had loathed her children.

He was no one’s lover.  

He quickly flicked open the buttons on his shirt.  

Eventually, as familiarity bred contempt, he no longer needed assistance.  Indeed, he had come to hate it as much as he had ever hated stripping himself.  If one of his patrons thought to enjoy removing his clothing he was firm, often very firm, about putting them in their place in regards to that matter.  His newer friends enjoyed that as much as his former ones had enjoyed tending to him.  

After finishing, Thomas put on a padded, grey silk robe that he had brought in his valise.  He knew that there was a strong possibility that the rather naive Miss Meadows may take one look at his naked form and change her mind.  Best to let her start with less that she paid for, his feet and ankles, his wrists, his clavicle, and then see if she was made of stern enough stuff.

Either way, even if she offered him his conge he was keeping her money.  It was spent, at any rate.

While he had been preparing Miss Meadows had been busy.  What he had taken for nervous pacing had been her slowly moving the pile of cushions to the middle of the green and black persian rug before the coal fire.  Considering her extreme lameness it was strange she had not had one of her servants do it for her.  Her mouth was a touch drawn, her lips thinned with either pain or thought as she used her cane to shove the mound of pillows into the shape she desired.

“I am prepared,” he said.  

She looked at him, her head cocked in thought.  “Your robe, may I use it?”

Now Thomas cocked his head, “What?”

“These cushions are too colourful.  Even though I will not be working with paint today, only doing the preliminary sketches, I find them distracting.  The grey will mimic stone well enough until I can find something better, if you would cover the pile with it.” 

Not quite the response he had been expecting.  

Thomas removed his robe, doing as she asked.  It didn’t quite cover the entire pile, but she seemed satisfied.  As he did so, Miss Meadows quietly assessed him.  “Your musculature is more developed than one expects of a man of leisure,” her voice was thoughtful, “and you seem larger without your clothing on.”

He may have made a choking noise as he stood back up.

“I spend every other month working on my family’s clay concern in Northumbria.  Even as the owner I often find myself mucking in the pit.  And I box.”

“Why boxing?”  She asked as she ungracefully stumped around him, taking him in at all angles, her gaze analytic.  He never felt more naked and less seen in his life.  

“Many of the workers in the pit are roughnecks, I have had to break up more than a few altercations in my time.” She seemed unmoved by his admission of being involved in brawling.  Suddenly he felt a desire to provoke her, “And, of course, there are the husbands,” he added with just a hint of leer in his voice.

“So both of your employments involve physical risk.  How thrilling,” she said, decidedly neither thrilled nor impressed and briskly moved on to her own interests.  “If you would please recline here, on your back with your arms above your head and your wrist together as if bound.  I would like your head thrown back so your throat is bared and arched.”

“And my legs?”

“I haven’t decided yet, so how ever you are most comfortable.  I am mostly concerned with your upper body at this point.”

Thomas settled himself onto the cushions, which were firm and held up under his weight, taking the position she requested.  The coal fire had almost been too warm before but now he appreciated it.  Again she circled him.  Looking closely but not seeing him.

He had always been beautiful, as man and boy, even as a baby, Luci-

Even as a baby, he had been told.

He was used to being admired or detested for his appearance and for the one who was observing him wanting him to know their feelings.  Miss Meadows seemed to have no feelings to be known.  “I cannot arch my neck the way you requested with my arms here.”

“No, that makes no sense.  Would you spread your arms, as if they were shackled to the ground, please?”

He moved his arms and was able to take the rest of the position.

“Good,” she mumbled, stumping to the other end of his body.  He could see the tips of her boots, one delicate and pretty, the other heavy and with a thick sole.  “Without moving otherwise, might you twist so most of your weight is on your right hip, and your left knee is bent and resting on your right thigh?”

After so shifting he was able to take on to pose.

“Perfect… except.”

Miss Meadow’s hesitated.  

Thomas lifted his head, “Is there a problem?”

She pointed diffidently to his phallus where it rested indolently on his hip.  “Would you, um, I would like to see the line of the bone there, so if you might move, that is to say, just an inch or so in either direction….”

Trying not to laugh, Thomas reached down and took himself in hand, sliding his fingers  unnecessarily and slowly down his length and moved his penis, “Is this where you would like it?” he asked innocently, and then moved it in the opposite direction, “Or do you prefer it here?”

She swallowed a bit and for the first time he saw Miss Meadows.  

When they had met at the Wolverton’s ball, and again at dinner at the Allingham’s, he had noted the expense of her gowns, and the quality of her jewels, and the care her maid had taken with her hair.  He had recognised that being crippled and only passably pretty made her a wallflower, and that the few fortune hunters that had gravitated to her had been ignored into submission.  

He had observed that she looked at him when she thought he was unaware.  

Thomas was always aware.  Everyone looked at him.  Admiring or censuring, everyone looked.

But now he saw Miss Meadows, who had told him he might call her Alice when she had contracted for his services, because it seemed silly to her otherwise.  He saw that her ashy brown hair was pulled into a simple braid, like a working woman might wear going to a mill, that it had a fine sheen in the firelight.  He saw that her lips were thin with both embarrassment and discomfort and could see that she was leaning heavily on her black wood cane.  That a faint flush was rising prettily from the high collar of her plain brown dress.  That her features were delicate.  That her brow was slightly damp and that her hands were graceful but smudged with ink and charcoal.  

Their eyes met briefly, as if in passing, while she tried to find somewhere to look that wasn’t suddenly embarrassing to her, while he studied her.  Her’s were hazel.  And her pupils were wide, her artistic froidure shaken.  

“Either,” she said quickly, “whichever is more, um, comfortable for you…”

He stopped himself from smiling, slowly adjusting himself again, her eyes drawn to the movement.  He felt himself stir very slightly, “Here, then,” he kept his voice soft.  When she looked at his face he allowed himself just a hint of a smile.

Alice straightened her shoulders, a look of resentment briefly crossing her face which she then schooled back into analytic distance as she took refuge behind her easel.

           ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘Damn, damn, damn!’ Alice cursed in her head.  He knew.  

He had seen her discomfiture, her lack of artistic dignity.  He had seen her embarrassment and admitted fascination.  Fascination that was as unexpect to her as it was clearly amusing to Sir Thomas.  It was just some flesh, oddly if not displeasingly shaped and colored, placed in a spot that was sensible for its uses and that was that.

‘Yes, it was,’ she thought to herself as she started to limn the basic shape of the rock upon which the being he was a stand-in for was meant to recline, ‘it was not anything like those she had seen in classical sculpture and some paintings.’  Art that she was not supposed to have seen, being a young lady, but money and determination will always find a way.

Perhaps Sir Thomas was deformed, and his appendage was abnormal, although it seemed well made enough.  She had certainly given herself enough time to get a good look at it, she thought, shaking her head at herself as she started in on a rough sketch of his right arm where it stretched towards her.  His hand was open, the fingers partially curled, as if emploring her to take it.  

No, clearly he was perfect.  Flawless.  The problem had been upon the part of those other models or of the artists themselves.  She would not make the same mistake.  She would draw him as he was, perfectly, with no changes.

Save for his hair.  That would need to be red. Fire red.  

As red as the flame where a lightning struck a tree, creating a blaze that could destroy an entire forest.  It would be longer than the baronets, trailing over his arms, spilling off of the great rock he was bound to, brushing the cold cave floor.

“Please close your fingers, as in making a fist.  You are not meant to be relaxing at your club, Sir Thomas.  I need to see the strain in your arm and hand.  As if you are struggling to free yourself.”

He looked as if he wished to speak, but did not, complying with her need.  

The effect upon the muscles of his shoulder was not a surprise to her, but the way it cause the tension to spread up his forearm to the bunched thickness of his bicep, and then across his pectorals and even his neck.  Alice noted the definition in his stomach.

She nearly dropped her charcoal.  Did all humans have muscles there?  She was quite certain she did not.  

For a moment she allowed herself to think of what it would be like to walk to him, to sink onto the pillows beside him, and to just rest her hand on those beautiful ridges.  Would he smile at her?  And if he did, what manner of smile would it be?  

Condescending, she had no doubt.  Not after the way he had smiled when noting her earlier interest in his manhood.  And what a picture of romance she would make, stumping over to him with her stick, stiffly half falling as she tried to reach the ground when her leg would go from inflexible to collapsing under her.  

She’d probably land on him.  It would serve him right for laugh she had seen in that smile.

For the next hour she sketched, using sheet after sheet of paper, each version of the drawing emphasizing another part of Thomas’s anatomy.  Alice realized that she would have to set her easel up in a different location tomorrow, so better to see his legs.

When done for the day, Sir Thomas rose, stretching, his back turned to her, and she allowed herself one, self-pitying, silent sigh at the sight of his perfectly formed hindquarters and the elegant length of his legs.  

Thomas redressed in silence, seeming oddly subdued, offering only his goodbyes and that he would see her on the morrow at the same time.

        -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thomas sat with an unopened book on the construction of the Grimsby Dock on his lap, holding a brandy so that the heat of his skin would warm it, and felt shaken.

He had been shaken since leaving Miss Meadows home in Cheyne Walk.  He had told himself it was the shock of the cold after the warmth of her studio.  He had always lied to himself about things he found unpleasant.  

It had been her regard.  The intensity of it.  How she had worked with such diligence.  How consumed with her art she had been, whilst at the same time consuming him.  He rather wished that he had not agreed to this week, but the roof at Allerdale Hall had gone from being a problem to being a fiction last winter, and if he expected that filthy hell-pile to not fall in on the clay works when the snows came he’d had to have the money.

But could he stand six more days of her eyes upon him?

When the brandy was warmed he drank it.

The second one he did not bother to warm.  


	2. Vincit Opus Pudori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day two.

The next afternoon Alice had acquired a blanket of grey velvet to completely cover the mound of cushions in place of Sir Thomas’s robe. She covered the pile of cushions and fiddled with it while he disrobed.  It was not perfect, but in the dying light where it sagged and bulged around the cushions it gave an effect not unlike a great stone.  

She had gone on a walking tour in Somerset the previous summer at the end of the season and had managed to find enough time on her own to visit some of the caves there to do a few sketches for her backgrounds.  The question of if they were similar to caves in more northerly climbs was moot as she would have no opportunity to compare them before she began to paint.

Still, the potential inaccuracy was a niggling annoyance she could not shake.

For the moment, however her greater annoyance, or perhaps another emotion she did not care for, was Sir Thomas and that arrogant, overly familiar smile of his.  The day before when he had entered he had been polite and even subdued, uncertain if a man of his breed could ever be such.  Not at all the ballroom charmer that she had first observed, but the more thoughtful man he was when he thought himself private.  

But after her discomfort and foolishness at the mere sight of his anatomy today he seemed-

He swaggered.  Like a Back of the Yards tough on payday.  Or like the professional ‘dance partner’ that he was.

He had swaggered into her studio, crossing the floor to her with a smugness to his face that she would no doubt find painful to remember for some time to come, not giving her a chance to rise so he loomed over her.  

When he had asked her if he should prepare himself he had swaggered to behind the screen, turning and giving her a narrow-eyed look, half of his mouth raised in knowing amusement and it had been all she could do not to request his absence.

Today she would re-establish herself as a serious employer in his eyes, unlike those woman who usually offered him  _ gifts _ in return for his friendship - Mrs. Calvert, Mrs. Blakewell, Lady Adelind, and the like.  

Alice neatened the small, black bow at the collar of her dress, took up her charcoal, and waited, poised for work.

              ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Shall I take my place, Miss Meadows?” he asked.  

Other than greeting him his employer had not looked up from frowning over her sketches, “Please do,” she said, picking up one of them and walking over to him, without aid of her stick.  He wanted to comment on it but felt it might be too personal.  Instead he situated his legs, adjusted his cock so it lay in the same way as previously, and spread his arms like a man crucified.

He had worked as hard as he could to be comfortable with the woman today.  To not show any overt familiarity or uncalled for friendliness.  Thomas hoped that using his typical professional demeanor would keep the discomfiture he had experienced under her emotionless yet so penetrating gaze would not repeat itself.

For twenty minutes or so she worked, not at the same pace as yesterday.  He could hear the scratch of her pencil above the sound of the fire, but it was halting, like someone making a number of false starts, but otherwise all was silence

Walking around him, she held the sketch, referring back and forth, shaking her head whilst staring at his arms.  “No, I cannot get this to work as it is.”  She was not speaking to him.  

He may as well have been her sketch.  Except no, for  _ that  _ she paid some attention to.

“Do you wish me to change the pose?”  Thomas could see the edge of her skirts catching on the wool of the rug  where she stood near his head.  Her petticoats were deep with lace even if the dress she wore was severe and nearly the same color as the brown she had worn yesterday.  

She did not answer.

For a few moments they remained still, then he could see her move, her hands raising, pulling something from under the high neck of her dress.  It was a gold lavaliere pendant with an enormous teardrop pearl.  Tucking her sketch under her arm where it left black marks on her clothing, she wrapped the chain it was on about her wrist and quickly jerked it tight where it bit hard into her pale skin.

She held it up to the light from the brass fixture hanging above them, turning her hand this way and that to seemingly admire the effect.  

“Here,” she said, unwinding it and it dropping down. He caught it just before it landed on his chest, not able to pull his eyes from the red mark that snaked around her arm.  He was certain that if he was closer he would see the impression of each individual link.  That if he traced his fingers along the redness he would feel them.

“Would you be so good as to wrap the chain likewise around your wrist.  The right one.  I find myself unable to picture what his flesh would look like under the pressure of the binding.”

_ His _ flesh?  He did not understand what she meant by that, as it was Thomas’s own flesh she was drawing.

Leaning up, he weighed the pearl in his hand.  It was clearly worth a fortune.  What manner of woman wore lace and gold where no one could see them?  

He was not comfortable with the idea of that chain that was still warm from her body restraining him, even if he was the one to bind himself.  

“Please,” she said again, her voice crisp, “I will do some quick studies of it, I just need to see.”

With an abrupt gesture he entwined his wrist, pulling the ends with his other hand.  Still standing above him, Miss Meadows removed a charcoal stick from behind her ear, leaving a mark on her face and began altering the sketch.  He started to ask her if that was what she needed when she cut him off.

“Tauter, if you would be so good,” she said, not taking her eyes from his wrist.  Thomas pulled the ends, the skin below the chain turning white, his hand turning red.  

Something about the chain, his nakedness at her feet, at anyone’s feet, her absorption in her work, in him whilst also somehow ignoring him at the same time started to wear on his temper.

He made a fist and felt his lip raise like the shadow of a snarl.  Miss Meadows’ breath hitched a bit as she drew more quickly, “Good, perfect.  He would be furious...”  After another few strokes she stopped looking at him at all, concentrating on the page.

Her engrossment in her work might have otherwise fascinated him.  The alert brilliance of her gaze, the tension of her neck like a hound straining for the hunt, the eager smile.  Like a woman might look upon greeting her lover.  

Apart from her having seemed to have forgotten his presence.

Dropping the ends of the chain, he sat the rest of the way up.  “Miss Meadows, I require a personal interval,” he said, trying to keep the anger from his voice and failing.

Not that she noticed.  “Yes, this is a good time for it.  The other door on the landing is for the water closet,” she said walking slowly back to her easel, her leg dragging more than it had before, sketching all of the while.  Her unladylike assumption of his needs nearly caused him to blush.  But she was not a lady, after all.  

Trade.  American trade.  What else could be expected? He thought, putting on his robe and shaking his hair free of the collar, then stalking past her, refusing to look over her shoulder to see if her work had any merit.  

“Sir Thomas?”  She put out her left hand as he walked by, not looking up from her sketch, “My pendent if you please?”

Although he was tempted simply drop it in her hand, he placed it in the cup of her palm, his fingertips lingering.  She looked up, jumping a bit, her hazel eyes as wide as they had been yesterday when they met his.  He gave her a nod and a brief smile before stepping away.

He stood in the neatly appointed white and black water closet for five minutes until his phallus achieved detumescence by considering Miss Meadows’- Alice’s- sporadic indifference to his person, and the wistfulness of her expression when he took his hand away from hers.

             ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After Sir Thomas returned from taking care of matters, Alice took up her pencils with a vengeance, the work going well and her determination to keep a shield of disinterest between them was thus far successful.  Until she had failed utterly, staring at him like a gormless girl.  Staring at the long line where his cheek slanted toward his temple, the perfect line of his jaw, the darkness of his eyes where only the faintest circle of blue could be seen around wide pupil that seemed to want to swallow her into its blackness.

“Might I ask you a question, Miss Meadows?  Or wasn’t I meant to call you Alice?” he asked, his amused ballroom tone sounding a tad forced, due to the unorthodox position he was speaking from no doubt.

“Miss Meadows would probably be prudent, but as I offered you the use of my given name you migh-”

“Very good.  Then, Alice, I am curious.  For all of your quiet ways you have always been very well dressed on the social occasions when we have met.  French silks and lace, excellent jewels.  What one might expect from a woman of your standing.  But in your own time, your attire… well, it is hardly what I would expect from an heiress, especially one to a dry goods fortune.  I am wondering if your father is aware that you are not turned out to your best effect at all times.”

Alice snapped the charcoal she was holding.  Carefully wiping the excess powder from her fingers, she picked up another and answered.

“It’s eolienne, quite good quality, French as much as my silk gowns are.  Ninety cents a yard and quite a bargain at that, as well as practical for one who engages in activities that are potentially damaging to their attire.”  She wished her leg was not aching so badly.  Vanity had made her do without her stick when he had first arrived and she would pay the price over the next few days. 

How she wished she could swagger over to him, look down at him with her hands on her hips and her anger apparent.  But such gestures were not for her.

Instead she spoke calmly and worked on how his ribs curved and the light disappeared into the hollow of his hip.  “I am a ‘dry goods’ merchant’s daughter, you are correct about that.  Dry goods to the tune of $150,000,000.  I know that men of your class consider that talking money is vulgar, even if you don’t mind the spending of it.  But you are wrong to think I have any shame over the matter.  And I know that is your actual implication in bringing up my family and my clothing.”  

Thomas leaned up on his elbow, ruining the line that she was trying to follow.  That she wished she could lay her hand on so she could feel bone and warmth.  There was a quietness to his expression she did not know from all of her time of looking, that she had never seen.  “As someone who can no longer afford shame at all I salute you as a potential comrade, Miss Meadows.”  

His voice was not the airy, amusing tone he used in the ballroom, it was rasping, deeper.  As if this was perhaps finally one thing he treated as serious.  She found herself leaning forward, willing him to say more.  Anything.  To share that Thomas, who took things seriously, who did not dismiss the idea of shame but rather accepted that there were matters more important than the fear of censure.

Or perhaps his throat was simply scratchy from the encroaching cold as the night went on, from his state of undress, and the unnatural position in which she had requested he lay, since he raised an ironic eyebrow at her and smirked.

“Alice, as I said before,” she said softly.  “Please lay back down.”

He took his place again.  “Alice,” he whispered to the ceiling.

         ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

The next day Thomas found himself looking forward to his visit to the studio. 

After their discomfort on the first day, and the peculiarity at the start of things on the second, he had felt when they had shaken hands goodbye that there had been a quiet accord between model and artist.  That they were finally feeling out their strange situation and would be able to go forward with more comfort.  Today he would ask her to show him what she was working on, to explain her subject and her goals.  

He wondered if it would be appropriate, or offensive to the somewhat prickly Miss Meadows, if he were to bring flowers.  There had been rather pretty dutch tulips in the market when he had walked home that morning after his regular Thursday assignation with Mrs. Blackwell, and something about them made him think that they would look rather well in that small room, sitting in a vase at Alice’s elbow as she worked.

Were there any left he would pick up a bundle on his way.  

Before he left he went through his mail.  Several bills, two of which he would be paying.  A letter from Mrs. Lansdowne, hoping to renew their acquaintance, in spite of his emphatic clarity in the past that they would not be.  A report from Mr. Dale at the clayworks, with no good news to share but mercifully none that was especially bad for a change.  A man had abandoned his job recently and Dale wanted permission to replace him.  Thomas made a mental note to write him back that night.

On the bottom of the stack was a small envelope, addressed in an elegant woman’s hand, but the ink especially dark and thick on the paper as if the writer had pressed too hard and split the pen nib too wide. 

It was from Ticehurst House.  

Inside, within a folded card that smelled of lavender, there was a lock of glossy, dark hair that was a match for his own and a pressed, dessicated moth whose papery wings fell apart when it slipped into his hand.  

The card was blank.

He reached for the brandy bottle.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ticehurst House was a well established mental institution in Britain, founded in the 18th century.


	3. Timor Vincit Cupiditas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rainy day.

Six Months Before ….

Mrs. Merrivel’s _thé dansant_ was more pleasant than Alice had been expecting.  The late May weather was perfection, with the soft sun above the trees dappling the guests with gentle, flattering light.  In addition, the Merrivel’s London home had a surprisingly large garden, and so sitting on one of the wooden benches under a willow, with a plate of small cakes on her lap, was far from onerous.

Most events that centered around dancing were something she endured more than enjoyed as a rule.  It was always a problem to find graceful ways to say no to the gentlemen who felt compelled to ask her to dance out of their sense of obligation.  As well as trying not to experience hurt feelings when the men who she was forced to reject, were never the ones that she wished she could say yes to.

Such as Sir Thomas Sharpe, who she would have had to refuse even if she had two good legs and the services of an excellent dancing master.  

Young, unattached women, or any woman who cared if she was brushed by scandal had to avoid him.  Normally, men who made their way in the world as ‘dance partners’ for a certain type of wealthy, older woman were beyond the pale of society and would not be invited to an exclusive afternoon tea dance, but Sir Thomas was still a baronet connected to some of the oldest families in England.  

In addition his presence always made for the most delicious gossip, her guardian Miss Gregory, had coyly informed her after the first time she had seen him at the Wolverton ball and heard the whispers as he passed.

The man himself was currently leading Lord Kernsey’s wife in a two-step, his mouth open in a laughing smile at something that the glamorous woman had said.  Even though he was marvelously pale and dressed in his signature, severe black - making him stand out amongst the other gentleman in their light colored garden attire like a raven amidst a flight of pigeons - he did not look out of place.  

Or perhaps, Alice speculated after months of observing him from a safe distance, he had no place and therefore looked no more or less detached everywhere he went.  

She watched the delicacy of his hand on the lady’s waist, touching her with just his first two fingers.  At how his great height made him appear to both loom over and shelter his partner at the same time.  The way his breath stirred a ringlet of her hair when he leaned in to whisper to her, making Lady Kernsey’s lips part ever so slightly.  The gossips had not mentioned the two of them being connected, so Alice suspected that the woman was simply attempting to attract the attention of her husband, who Miss Gregory had called a ‘notorious invert.’

Alice was not entirely certain what that term meant, but she suspected it had something to do with his preference for the company of the young man he was currently sitting with on the lawn to that of his wife.

When the dance ended Sir Thomas bowed lower over Lady Kernsey’s hand, and Alice could see his fingertips trace along the lady’s palm as he stepped away.  It took some force not to touch her hands together to see what that would feel like.

She watched him cross to the champagne table and then wander away from the crowd, coupe in hand, being followed by every gaze save that of Lord Kernsey.  Although his friend Mr Douglas did look.  Some of those who watched had expressions full of bile, some of desire, other of disgust, and even a few of amusement, but none were indifferent.  She wondered if she could see herself watching him what expression she would be on her face.

Nothing appropriate, she thought, schooling her features to their usual bland pleasantness.

There was a small break in the music and Alice’s leg began to feel stiff, so she told Miss Gregory she would take a turn around the garden.  The lady was happy to remain with her small glass of sherry.  

The paths were very smooth and well-kept, so she had little trouble with them and so walked farther than she might have otherwise.  The tight muscles loosened, but the straps on her brace were a bit too tight that afternoon, so the pull of it on her skin with each step was starting to chafe.  It took a great deal of effort not to sigh.  It was a habit she had worked to break herself of as she left girlhood behind, fearing that she would sigh herself into the grave.

She had seen earlier that there was a bench near a flowering bush ahead, and she thought to rest there before turning around.  Alas, when she came to it Alice found it was already occupied by Sir Thomas.

He had stretched himself upon the cool marble, a hand trailing in the gravel of the path, the other holding his glass on his chest.  His eyes were closed, but he did not look relaxed. Rather, he frowned, his expression bordering on anger.  “Madeline, I told you that I would find you later, so please leave.”  He spoke without looking up, referring to his most notorious innamorata Mrs. Lansdowne.  His tone was censorious, like a stern schoolmaster dressing down a recalcitrant child.

“My apologies for disturbing you, Sir Thomas,” she responded, while not turning to leave.

He sat up quickly, nearly spilling his champagne, but recovering gracefully.  As with all things a dancer to the end.

For a moment he stared at her, his blue eyes hooded with thought, trying to place her, that same displeasure on his handsome face.  Then he smiled, the smile that he gave to the ladies he charmed and the gentlemen he cuckolded, that was his mask, “No, my deepest apologies, Miss Meadows.  I should have recognised it was you.”

Ah, of course, “Yes, my step, most particular,” she said, holding her stick up a bit, trying not to feel stung.

He took a walked a bit towards her, a hint of the swagger she had seen him use in the ballroom displayed for her benefit.  “Not at all.  Your perfume.  Neroli.  Like a lady of the eighteenth century, who powders her hair and perfumes her gloves. Very rare.”

Alice’s heart was foolishly fast.

“Not many gentlemen would recognise such a thing.”  Although her father would.  But for different reasons than Sir Thomas no doubt.

He gave a shrug with just his left shoulder, the muscle pulling at his daringly tailored jacket, “That which is of interest to ladies should always be of interest to a gentleman.  How else should he know how to please?  I would have thought of orange blossom for you.  It’s warmer, sweeter.”  He was now quite close, smiling a smile that close up looked heartfelt, but that she knew from a distance would appear quite patronizing.  

He gave that smile to his patronesses.

The man really could not stop himself.  He must charm all or fail.

She put her stick down, pressing it into the ground and leaned on it with both hands, now annoyed, “I am neither warm, nor sweet, sir.  And is it possible to please all of the ladies?  We are not of a piece,” she asked tartly.  

For a moment he looked to answer her with another bit of habitual flirtation, but then his expression turned plainly cruel.  “Only if one cares nothing for those he tries to please.  Lies make all things possible.  Good day, Miss Meadows,” he gave another small bow and went to walk away.

Her heart raced at his words.  

Lies make all things possible.  Spoken with complete candour.  The hypocrisy was breathtaking, but Alice found it inspiring.  A thrill went through her, of ambition, of possibility, of bravery, of the foolhardy urge to throw over all propriety and do something truly dangerous.

“Sir Thomas, wait a moment if you will,” she said, and as he turned back with a look of curiosity she took her own fate and possibly his as well into her hands and made him an offer unlike any he had received before.

 

Now….

It was a filthy day, with icy rain making the afternoon into night and the streets treacherous with ice.  The stink of smog was on the air even though it had not rolled out yet, but it surely would before days end.

Typical, everyone said, for London in the later days of November.  Alice did not mind.  As a child she had always selfishly enjoyed bad weather, not having to watch other girls walk down Prairie Avenue, their skirts billowing in the breeze from the lake when they stopped to play on the green.  Knowing that when the streets were wet and the air cold they were no better off than she, trapped in their huge houses, bored and maybe lonely.

As she grew she tried to put aside such uncharitable thoughts, but her fondness for days like this one remained.

Alas, Sir Thomas appeared to not share her love of the dark and cold.  He had arrived late for their appointment and had not brought an umbrella, so his normally impeccable clothing were sodden, his elegant trilby possibly unsalvageable.  His shoulders were hunched against the chill and there was no swagger in his walk.  

Rather, he stalked across the floor of her studio like a man facing an unpleasant task, ignoring her greeting.  He stood before the fire for a few moments, leaning on the mantel as if to hold himself up.  Alice stumped over to him, the damp making her leg ache and stiffen, but she was used to the discomfort and noted it little.

The warmth of the fire on his face was breathtaking.  The light seemed to love him, caressing the hollows of his cheek, the edge of his jaw and cheek, the length of his oh so aristocratic (and now she saw in this light, once broken) nose. For the first time she noted just a hint of auburn glinting in the curl of his hair.

His eyes were dark with exhaustion, but they were also so blue...

“Shall I add more coals?  I had a larger fire laid this morning due to the weather.  I would hate for you to be uncomfortable.”

His shoulders tensed and he turned to her, his face no longer illuminated save by a cold burning in his eyes, “Yes, it would so _dreadful_ for me to uncomfortable.”

She could smell brandy on his breath.  

He took off his soaked coat, tossing it over the screen that had been placed in the room for him.  The weight of the wet cloth caused it to sway ominously, and Alice flinched from the imagined sound of the wood and lacquer clattering and cracking on the floor.  It stopped itself, askew from its normal position.  She longed to walk over and straighten it, putting the thing back where she’d chosen for it, but felt she could not step away from Sir Thomas.

Who had not stopped himself.

He had gone one knee, the top of his head brushing her skirts so she had to jump back and began unlacing his boots.  “After all,” he added, “the effort you have made to make me feel at home,” his voice was low, emphatic.  

“What are you doing?”  Alice fiddled with her pendant chain where she could touch it under her collar.  Looking around as if there would be some help.

“Preparing for your… _art_!”  He said the last word as if it were something distasteful, and rose, toeing the loose boots off while wrestling with his wet jacket.

“I - you could step behind the screen.  If you would step behind the screen, please.”

“Why?” He sounded calmer again, now on to his waistcoat.  “The result will be the same if I am here or there.  My state of undress, and you staring at me with those great, ravenous eyes of yours.  All the same.”

It was not the same.  Alice did not know why, but it was not.  She twisted the chain nervously, so it bit into both her fingers and her throat.

“Please do-”

He had not bothered unbuttoning his shirt other than the top few buttons and the cuffs, instead simply pulling it off over his head and letting it fall onto the pile made from the rest of his formerly beautiful suit.  

He wore no undershirt, and for some reason that seemed like far too much for Alice to know about him.  She turned, “I will leave until you are finished,” she said.

Thomas grabbed her, his long fingers easily encompassing her forearm.  “You will not!”  The savage had returned.  “You wish to see me then you will look!”  Then, as if suddenly ungainly, he sagged back against the wall, the drink momentarily taking him, throwing her arm from him so he could pull off his socks.

Alice stared at his feet, thinking that somehow looking there would be less humiliating, but it was not.  They seemed even more naked than his chest, under the black cuff of his trousers, perfectly white and long.  Vulnerable.

She heard a quiet, ratcheting laugh from him.  “Ah, I’ve had… ladies shall we call them… who were very fond of my feet.  More than fond, worshipful.”  Alice’s gaze jerked to his amused face, “Shocked, Miss Meadows?  Alice?”  He hissed her name.  “How little you know for all that you see.”

“Why are you like this?”  She had meant to say ‘Why are you acting like this?’ but it came out wrong, and her voice was strange to her.  Breathy and anxious.

“For reasons that would send you running into the rain.  Now,” he said, “normally I do not allow my friends this freedom, but would you care to assist with the final part of my disrobing?”

He looked from where her hands were again at her bodice, twisting her pendant, the grey merino of her dress, and then flicked down to the buttons of his trousers.  Again he laughed, “Your eyes, Miss Meadows.  Your eyes.”

With practiced speed he was undone, stepping out of his trousers and linen, kicking them away.

The most humiliating little sound of her life came from Alice as she stared at his manhood, jutting upwards, red and even larger than it had been in repose.  The tip, protruding from the surrounding skin, glistening as a touch of pearly moisture escaped it.  

It moved!  Jumping slightly when she looked.

“Pardon me, Miss Meadows.  No, Alice, it really should be Alice _now_.  But it seems it likes you.  Likes those wide hazel eyes.  Likes the way your lips are parted and you keep touching them with your tongue.”

She looked up into his eyes, wounded and confused, touching her lips with her fingers all whilst tangling her fingers ever tighter in that necklace she wore hidden.  She had not known what she was doing that with her mouth.

Why was he doing any of this?

“I suppose I should take care of it, or your painting will be ruined, will it not?  Those lines you are so fond of will be obscured.  Not to worry,” his voice started to slur a bit, “shan’t take but a moment.  I find it is very excited by those staring eyes of yours.”

He wrapped his hand around his member, the same hand that he had squeezed about her arm, and started to move it slowly up and down, the flesh moving under his grip.  There was something lazy in the motion, in his now slitted eyes.  If she had wanted to walk away before now she was still, like in a dream she used to have where her stick took root in the ground, and then her feet, and then she was completely immobile.  

She felt her tongue wet her lips, just a touch, and it made her shiver, wondering what it would feel like to have Thomas’s mouth, his tongue, on hers.  

“Keep watching, Alice.  Watch it, watch me, but watch,” his voice was slightly dreamy, then something flickered in his expression as he looked up, as he seemed taken with a memory. There was that nasty laugh again, but this time it sounded out of control, “I normally don’t offer this service for my friends.  She used to like it, said how exquisite I was.  How sometimes she couldn’t bear to touch me because I was so perfect that she might soil me.”

Again, quick as a snake he grabbed Alice’s hand hard enough to hurt them both and pressed it to his phallus, holding it in place while he used it to service himself.  “I think I want you to soil me, Miss Meadows.”

Alice knew she should struggle, that she might harm him to free herself, but the feel of him against her fingers, her palm, hot and slightly sticky and very real.  Not the image of the gentleman he gave to the crowd, not the idea of a sophisticated lover she had seen flirting with his lady friends, not even the idol of marble that she had made of him as he sprawled upon the ground of her studio.

He was as much a creature of the earth as she, and something had cut him and this was how he bled.

His free hand now trapped her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes.  “If that is pity I see in your gaze I will make you sorry for it.”

“No.  I use all of my pity on myself and have none to spare for another,” she said, and found herself unable to not drop a kiss on to his fingertips.

With a sound of shock he let her go, both above and below, and she felt his member surge under her still moving hand.  He tensed and opened his mouth as if crying out, though there was no noise.

He caught his spend in his palm and threw it into the fire where it hissed and spat.

  



	4. Vincit Opus Placitum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Persistence and avoidance.

Three months earlier -

Summer was nearly over and Thomas would have to leave for the north soon.

For three months he had been a guest at various country estates - Warden Park, Flitwich Bury, and for the last two weeks, Guise Priory at the invitation of Madeline Lansdowne, who was desperate for company whilst her husband was in Scotland on business and so decided to have a small house party.

Guise was a lovely old house, with a pleasant park and an excellent staff.  The days had been sunny and lazy.  And as Madeline was in her own way nearly as notorious as he, the company was less dull than was usual for a country affair.  

In addition to some of her family who she had been unable to avoid including - a pretty but rather loud sister, two little brothers from a second wife who spent most of their time eating cakes or falling into either the pond or the roses, and a very old aunt who slept a great deal  - there were guests of real interest.  

Lord Basinghurst, who had written a very entertaining and moderately salacious book of his time in India, and his native wife who wore a sari over her tartan dress, who was boredly silent when anyone tried to speak to her and smoked opium in the ballroom when it was not engaged.  Ellington Price-Reynolds, who had been one of the top batsmen of the last decade until he was found in coitus with twins, one of whom was named Reginald.  A poet named Eleanora who became everyone’s favorite guest due to her absolute refusal to read any of her work aloud.  A Spanish opera baritone who sang popular songs in the evenings, whose name Thomas never did get.  

Miss Meadows and her duenna, Miss Gregory.  

How a respectable and to all outward appearances rather dull, unworldly, crippled girl managed to get herself included in Madeline’s house party was a mystery.  Mrs. Lansdowne prided herself on the nature of her guests as much as she did the elegance of her table, the faultlessness of her entertainments, and the depth of her husband’s wine cellar.  Miss Meadows was quite pretty as well as being excessively rich and had one of the most elaborate wardrobes in society due to the origins of her wealth, so allowances might have been made for the lack of intrigue attached to her.   

They might have even been made for her being an American, since they were not entirely out of fashion this year.

But her enfeebled leg, causing her to limp and drag her leg most of the time, or lurch to near falling at others, catching herself at the last moment each time, should have kept her off of the guest list.  As it was, she spent the majority of her time indoors, even in good weather, the setting of the Priory being too rustic for her to traverse most of it.

When he learned that she had used her father’s business connections to Madeline’s husband to finagle an invitation, it explained both her presence and her hostess’s clear distaste at having her there.  Miss Meadows’ steady, studying gaze had no doubt convinced her that the girl was here as a sort of spy.  Thomas could have eased her worries, but he saw no reason to.  

He did not like Madeline at all, so cared little of her upset, nor did he care particularly for Miss Meadows and her all-seeing eyes.  So the fact that most of the guests took their cue from their hostess and snubbed the girl was of indifference to him. 

Only Price-Reynolds made any attempt to be friendly with her, being that he was the sort of man who was convulsively genial to all.  

As to why she was there, that Thomas knew.

She was pursuing him with her mad idea of his working as her model, her  _ manikin _ .  For the last few months she had appeared wherever he was, quietly sitting on the edge of whatever event they might be attending, watching him.  Waiting for a discreet moment in which to yet again offer him an increasingly outlandish sum to expose himself.  To let her stare and stare to her greedy heart’s content and then record the event of his humiliation, and display his desperate need for money by hanging it on a wall.  

And ruining her, therefore staining him with one of the few sins he had yet to commit in the eyes of society.

It was so much money, though!  Enough to get him through til the Season began in December when all of his lady friends, and new ones he had not met yet, would all be gathered in London.  But he could not tolerate the idea of it.  The miniscule speck of his remaining masculine pride, which his father had sneeringly assured him he was not possessed of, stung him every time he considered changing his mind.  

In order to save himself the difficulty of temptation for the weeks of the party, Thomas had not dissuaded Madeline from making things gently unpleasant for Miss Meadows, even though he could have.  His tacit approval of her various meanesses had meant that Madeline was forever scheduling picnics on hillsides, walks in forested glens, games such as charades, and then was overly solicitous, offering to have a servant carry the girl, or to fetch a wheeled chair from the village vicarage where she knew there was one in storage, or suggesting a game of Statues.  

Miss Meadows would, each time, offer a bland smile and shake her head the slightest bit, turning down the offers with gentle thanks as you might to a small child who had just given you a mangled daisy.  Thomas wished the rudeness would drive the young woman away at the same time that he secretly applauded her bottomless  _ sang froid _ .  

“I cannot understand why someone would stay where they are clearly not wanted!”  Madeline exclaimed in frustration that night, her lacy peignoir billowing as she crossed her arms and pouted.  

Thomas often wondered that too, and yet she still found her way to his bedchamber each night.  

To his misfortune, like her, he couldn’t afford to send his undesired guest away.

“Perhaps she enjoys indignity,” he said, shrugging out of his waistcoat.  He did not bother to remove other clothing.  

“What?” Madeline asked.

“There are those who enjoy such things.  Have someone treat them with abject rudeness and scorn,” he stepped behind her, stripping her robe off and nibbling on her neck, resisting a desire to bite hard as she hated the idea of anything marring the creamy skin she was justly proud of.  “Would you like that, Maddie?” he whispered, “If I were cruel to you?”  He pushed her head down so she bent over the footboard of the bed.

“You are cruel to me,” she said, as he pushed up her silk gown.  She was bare beneath it, her cunt already wet and gaping for him.  Her head was half turned and she looked at him coyly through her honey-colored hair.  

He loosed himself and closed his eyes to her pretty face, squeezing and stroking, trying to make himself even hard enough to enter her.  “Yes, I am, quite cruel,” he said, marvelling that an educated woman did not know that cruelty and indifference were not the same.

“Maybe if you were cruel to Miss Meadows she might leave,” she purred as he used his fingers on her as he tried to interest himself.  “For all that she is deformed she is still enough of a woman to be interested in you, my beautiful, uh… yes, that…  Maybe even more so.  They say that cripples have greater appetites, perverse ones.”

Thomas’s cock stirred to life, and he thrust in hard, jerking his hips fast in hopes of finishing her before he flagged again.   He hoped she would be quiet, now.  That would make it easier. 

Some time later, after Madeline had dreamily drifted from his rooms, grasping his hand and kissing it, rubbing it against her face so she could enjoy her own scent, Thomas went in search of a drink, knowing there was an excellent selection in Mr. Lansdowne’s study.  On his way he met, inevitably as death itself, Miss Meadows stumping her way up the stairs.

Her hair had come out of its simple yet perfect coiffure, and it stuck to her forehead in fine curls.  She was flushed and breathing hard.  “Are you well, Miss Meadows?” he asked, concerned at her state.  

She gave him a small smile of defiance, “Mrs. Lansdowne discovered my interest in painting and moved my rooms to the third room so I might enjoy the view and the better light,” she said, and then moved past him to slowly stump her way up the next flight.

He watched her. Her silk skirt swaying and her back was as straight as she could manage, now that someone could see her battle with the staircase.  Later, as he lay in bed with a tumbler of whiskey, he thought that this summer would see the end of his entanglement with Madeline.  

The sound of Alice’s cane striking the floor and her toe dragging up each riser and then thumping onto the next tread was too familiar and found its way into his nightmares.  

The next morning, on a silver salver a letter was presented to him with numerous stamps and changes of address from where it had chased him about England through the course of the summer.  It was from  Ticehurst.  He read it whilst eating his toast, the envelope hidden in his pocket so no one else at the table could see the return address.

Afterwards, he excused himself- correctly but with some haste- from the table and sought out Miss Meadows, telling her that he had thought of her proposal again and agreed to it, though it must wait until he saw to some business that might take some time.  He would contact her when he returned to town.

For once she seemed caught out, holding a small book she had been sketching in, her mouth slightly open with surprise.  “I am so pleased?” she said with a tone of confusion and now some uncertainty.  But then she nodded firmly.  “Please inform me as soon as you are back in London, I will want to start as soon as is possible.”

Thomas bowed away from and left her, bounding up the stairs and making it to his room just before he unable to hold it back, vomiting violently into the chamber pot.

 

November -

Alice stood on the sidewalk outside of the building where Sir Thomas had his rooms, straightening her gloves for the third time.  And then her hat again as well.  

The house was in an area on the edge of a respectable if not fashionable neighborhood, where things were beginning to slip into disrepute.  The front stoop had not been scrubbed in some time and the curtains that could be seen behind the smudged first floor windows were yellow with too many bleachings and hung askew.  

Under most circumstances Alice would not be able to enter the dwelling of a bachelor alone.  Both her maiden modesty and the rules of a respectable landlord would prevent it.  But she was certain that whoever Sir Thomas rented from would be practiced in turning a blind eye.  As to her maiden modesty….

After the last time she had seen Sir Thomas there seemed to be not enough of it left to bother with.  Indeed, once over the shock, and the anger, and the confused feelings for which she had no name but seemed more connected to her physical person than her inner one, she was a bit pleased.  When she had looked in the mirror that night the memory of the feel of his person in her hand, the expression of transport on his face, it made her blush bright but also feel more a woman of the world.

Quite appropriate for an artist working a scandalous painting.

After he had… finished what he was doing, Alice had left the room to wash her hand and change her dress which had received some of his discharge, and give him a moment to compose himself.  She had expected to either return to him either dressed and apologetic, or perhaps asleep from the drink.

Instead he had been gone, the only evidence of his earlier presence being where the stack of cushions were disturbed, from having been kicked or tripped over she could not say.

That had been three days before.

Alice had allowed Sir Thomas a day for his embarrassment, and a second for her own, but now matters were growing annoying.  They had a business arrangement and her time was precious and there was little enough of it left.

The concierge of the building was an elderly woman in widows weeds, who gave Alice a frown not so much of judgement but uncertainty, but finally led her upstairs.  “He’s just come home,” was all she offered as she gave a quick knock on a door on the second floor.

He opened the door, looking at a letter, his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, “Mrs. Clemmons, I will be-,”  

“You have a guest, Sir Thomas,” the woman said, leaving quickly rather than discreetly.

For just a moment there was a flash of an unguarded look on his face as he stared at Alice.  There was astonishment for certain, in the way his mouth went slightly open, his lower lip drooping a touch as it sometimes did when he spoke.  His brow furrowed, giving her a brief glimpse as to how he would look an older man.  

His eyes, which were a shade of blue that she had not been able to replicate in oils or inks, normally amused or annoyed, were so soft for that unguarded moment, and she flattered herself that he was not displeased to see her.  As quick as the impression was made it fled, his lips going flat, his brow smoothing, his eyes rolling.

“Miss Meadows,” he hesitated a moment, “well, you’ve already done yourself enough damage by being seen here so please, come in.”

The room was larger than she would have thought, and it appeared some interior walls had been removed to make it so.  Several large lamps were lit and the fire was going briskly, so that if it was November outside it was June within.  The old, but sturdy furnishings that you would expect at such an address Sir Thomas had clearly supplemented.  

A large, long oak table, more suitable for a kitchen was set near the window and was scattered with fine tools, bits of mechanism she did not know, and, to her surprise, some paints. It looked that he was currently either creating or repairing an automaton, some kind of animal, but it was in so many pieces she could not be certain if it was wolf or rabbit.

There were other, finer pieces, including an enormous wing-backed chair, twice as large as it needed to be, made of overly detailed, dark wood and covered in fading blue brocade, that was closest to the fire.  He motioned for her to sit there, but as low as it was, and as badly as her leg was hurting today, Alice knew she would need assistance rising from it again and she refused to show any weakness before the baronet today.  

Additionally, something about the shape of great wings gave her a childish fear that if she should sit upon it they would close about her and she would be suffocated in cloth and wood.

Instead she took a seat at a straight backed wooden chair near a charming 18th century escritoire that seemed out of place in the heavy room.  “The fire is a bit too warm for me today,” she said.

He nodded, briefly looking around and rubbing his hands together, “I would offer you tea, but Mrs. Clemmons’ offerings are the opposite of hospitable and I have none of my own.”  He sat on a stool near the work table, near enough to speak comfortably.  He did not roll down his sleeves or put back on his coat.  It made her uncomfortable and Alice wanted to laugh at herself for suddenly turning into a proper, little mouse.

There was fine, dark hair on his arms.  What might it feel like under her fingertips?

“I do not care for tea, actually,” she answered, not certain why he would care or why she told him.  To share an unimportant intimacy in the face of their relationship thus far seemed silly.

“Yes, at the Priory you would sit with a cup until it grew cold, but I should still offer.  At any rate, I cannot.  Nor a glass of sherry, or any biscuits, or even coffee, if one could stand to drink such a thing in the afternoon.  So I have nothing for you, Miss Meadows.  Not even an apology, which I am assuming you are here for.”

He spoke in his most drawlingly aristocratic tone, speaking down to her as if from a mountain heritage.  

He had noticed that she didn’t care for tea.

They sat silently for a moment.  Alice had rehearsed a number of ways to address him before arriving and none suited, so finally she blurted out, “I need you to return with me to my studio, and to work with me through the weekend to make up the lost time.  We can begin earlier in the day as to not interfere with any social engagements you might have, if that would help.  As far as an apology, there can be no apology for delaying my work and for anything else, none is required.  The past is the past and cannot be repaired, only accepted and moved on from.”

“How very  _ American _ of you, Alice,” he sneered.

“I would suppose it is.  Now I understand you have just returned, so if you have some matters you need to take care of before you can begin I will give you a few hours grace, but I expect you at Cheyne Walk by five,” she said, imitating her father when she had seen him speaking to subordinates at the store.  Sir Thomas may have a mountain of heritage, but she had a Pike’s Peak worth of money and he had already benefited from it.

She rose rather too quickly and nearly lost her balance, but caught herself even as he surged to his feet to take her arm.  Embarrassed, she pointed to the automaton, “Is that your work?”

“Yes. It’s to be a… I dabble.  A man should have his hobbies,” his voice went from earnest to blase in a few words.  

            --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thomas let her get to the door before he found himself speaking.  “I had not thought you would want me to return, after my obscene behavior.”

Alice stopped herself and turned around, letting her back touch the door.  She was walking very badly today.  He wondered if she had twisted or strained her leg, or if it was the rigidity of how she held herself putting extra strain on it, or the high stairwell and rising damp of this wretched house.

“Your behavior has never been of concern to me, Sir Thomas.  Your person is, and my painting.  I have only a few weeks until my parents and brother join me and I will find it impossible to find time to work.  Additionally, even should I manage to sneak a few moments here and there, if I should be caught out creating such a thing… my father is a very understanding man.  He has fostered my art in that it is an acceptable and possible accomplishment for someone of my standing and limitations.  And he is progressive in his own way, but no man is that progressive.”

“I am certain that not only the subject but the model would be shocking to any parent.”

“I doubt they will recognise you.  The angle of your face, the alteration to the hair, and the expression of transport, of fury, of passion.  Any look of true emotion will alter you sufficiently to hide your identity.”

Thomas felt a sting through him, like a needle to the gut.  “True emotion?  Passion?  Rage?”  

“Nothing that slips through your mask of charm and indifference, if they should be there to begin with,” she answered, as he started to see the anger in her.

He used his height to lean over her, his forearm pressed to the door over her head, his face above hers.  “And what do you know of such things?  A sheltered, cosseted girl living in a jewelbox?  Who sits in corners and stares at real life and knows so little of it?” he jeered, so he would not rage.

For a moment he thought she would shove him.  Prayed for it.  Suddenly he thought Alice’s little hands pressing into his chest, the feel of them burning through his waistcoat, through his shirt, might actually warm him.

Instead she stood up straight, which added to her dignity and their closeness.  “I know of them for that very reason.  No one thinks more about food than a starving man, Sir Thomas,” she said calmly, her eyes very wide, and very strange, with bits of brown and green and gold.  Her wide, fashionable hat framed her face like that of a haloed icon.

He kissed her.  Her mouth was closed, her lips were soft, and close up the neroli she wore was intense but did not cover her own scent.  He wondered what she would smell like in the mornings, warm from sleep, their essence combined from the night before.  

Thomas had not slept, not woken with, anyone since he was a boy in the nursery.  The idea of flesh touching his for hours while he was helpless and unaware was repulsive.  Something convinced him that it would not be so with Alice.  

She spoke against his mouth, “Why are you-”

It was so rare for him to kiss.  Year ago, for certain, when he was still new to his work, when he was a green boy and he let his lady friends do anything they wanted, so eager was he to please.  Over time he had learned that playing the selfish cad was easier and attracted just as many companions.  

Selfish cads only kissed with a nasty indifference and rarely at that.

“Shhhhh,” he whispered, using her words as an opportunity to slide his tongue along the tender inside of her lower lip.  The strange sensation made her shudder and caused her to push against him.  He pulled her the rest of the way into the kiss, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. Lusciously stroking her tongue with his, slowly, gently, her breath growing lazy as she accepted everything he gave her.  

She knew nothing about kissing.

He knew too much.  

This was her first lesson.

With a final, soft buss to her lips he pulled away.  She was breathless, her heaving bosoms were deliciously crowned with tight nipples that he could see through the tweed of her walking dress, and her eyes were dazed if not starry.

“Why?”  

Sincerity boiled up him like bile, but he tamped it down, “Because you said you were hungry, and it would be a poor host who didn’t offer at least you at least a nibble, Miss Meadows.  Now run along, I will see you at five.”

With a quick nod, and no seeming offense, Alice delicately straightened the veil on her hat, “Please do not be late.”

And she was gone, leaving only the scent of bitter oranges and his fresh self-loathing as evidence she had been there at all.

  
  



	5. Hinc Sensus Communis Vincit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A social event.

Thomas had not expected Alice to attend Winifred Ashfield’s birthday fete.  

She had said nothing about it when he had returned to her studio that afternoon, but then she had spoken little.  When he had entered she had been working on an enormous canvas, set to catch the light so he could see nothing but the back of it and the intensity of her gaze.  She wore a housemaid’s smock over her brown dress and fine lines of pain and stress around her mouth spoke of discomfort at standing.

Her fingers were smeared heavily with red.  

For a moment the sight of it nearly sent Thomas back out of the room.   But then she looked up from her work and gave him the slightest smile, nodding almost shyly as if he had caught her doing something moderately embarrassing.  Something secret.  

The memory of that had overwritten her - a girl with hair as dark as burnt wood taking his hand, gore staining him as well - disappeared.  Instead there was a young woman, struggling to make something and finding herself wanting, a feeling he could share.

They had a kinship.  Not of blood, but of that struggle.

For the first time he felt shame, not for having done what he had done on their last few encounters - Thomas felt shame for what he did most of the time - but that he had done it to her, when all she wanted to do was this, and he had made it harder for her.

“I am sorry to interrupt,” he said, fiddling with his hat like a boy.

“Not at all.  I was expecting you.  And this-,” she gestured at the canvas with annoyance, “goes badly today.  I cannot find the shade I need for… Never mind.”

He longed to see, but she stepped unevenly around the easel, grabbing her cane as she went, her knuckles gripping white.  

“I shall prepare,” he said, quickly retreating behind the screen.

They had spent the afternoon in near silence.  The smaller easel she used for sketching had been moved slightly closer and more towards his feet so she could study his lower body.  For a moment Thomas had felt himself engorge, and it took his drawing to mind memories of things that he had long since relegated to the devil to halt it’s progress. 

Now, these few hours later, Alice seemed like a different creature.  No longer the serious student bent to her work, gleaming ash brown hair worn for practicality, her eyes intent and sharp, taking in him and her page with equal fervor.  In the place of that Alice was the girl he had first met, dressed in the cutting edge of fashion in a Worth gown of pale peach and antique gold, the long sleeves like that from a fairytale princess.  

Her hair was bound up in a coiled coronet, and her eyes were all seeing yet shuttered.  She wore elegant ear-fobs and a diamond bracelet over her gloves, but only he knew that the gold chain that was barely visible where it disappeared beneath her bodice ended in a ruby shaped like a drop of blood.

This Alice offered nothing to the world outside, taking all in and giving nothing in return as she sat by the fireplace, sipping sherry and talking only to her guardian, the already mildy tipsy Miss Gregory.

“Planning on throwing your hat into the heiress ring, Thomas?” a light, amused voice whispered in his ear.

“Winnie!” he turned to kiss his hostess’s hand, “Many happy returns of the day, my dear.”

Of his regular dancing partners, Mrs. Ashfield was the only one he was genuinely fond of.  She was still lovely in her 40s, with the very unfashionable but toothsome figure of the kind prefered by Renoir, piles of golden hair, and a ready laugh.  

Like with Thomas’s parents, hers was an arranged marriage to someone that she shared only a mutual loathing with.  However, because the Ashfield’s were reasonable and very decent people- unlike his odious mother and father- they chose to make the best of things.  After supplying posterity with an heir and a spare, Mr. Ashfield had gone to live in the country where it was said he kept a pretty mistress and several by-blows, ceding town to his wife.

Other than important family and social occasions they were never seen together and were renowned for having one of the best marriages in society.

“Thank you, my darling,” she said, offering her cheek as well as her hand.  She was just scandalous enough, but not too scandalous.  She was also funny, light-hearted, and a good mother.  When Thomas bedded her he took some measure of pleasure from both her lush, large body and her refined perversities.  “I am hoping you can stay and give me my gift after my other guests leave?”  

Before he could answer she tucked his hand in her arm and started walking him through the elegantly dressed throng towards the refreshment table. 

“You look pale, Thomas.  Even for you.  Have some cake and then answer my question.  Because if you mean to have Miss Meadows you will need to step lively.  The second son of the Earl of Borwith has the lead in that department.  No, the third son, the second son is living with a singer in Paris and has blue eyes.  The third son is just out of Cambridge and has a rather nice form.”

She leaned in and whispered, “Not so nice as yours, but still quite fine.  See?”  She nodded back towards where Alice sat by the fire.

A handsome, spare young man with beautiful posture and golden curls had seated himself beside her, his long legs stretched out.  He looked like a Renaissance angel, like he could be Thomas’s reflection.

Or perhaps an image of what he might have been, had he been raised amongst human beings.

The smile he was giving to Alice seemed quite genuine.

She was laughing just a bit at whatever he had just said.

The cream cake that Thomas had been enjoying spoiled in his mouth like milk left in a hot room and he found himself wanting to gag.  Instead he handed the small plate to a passing servent with a polite nod of thanks.  

“You know that I am not in the marriage market,  Too much to do to settle down,” he answered with a charming smile, “and too many friends I should hate to give up,” he trailed a finger down the inside of her arm, knowing it would make her shiver.

Winnie shook her head.  “So you say, my dearest, but we both know it isn’t so.  You may have much to do, trying to drag your family business into the modern era.  And keeping that crumbling pile you have been burdened with from falling in on itself, but your friends you would happily do without.”  She gave him a wistful smile, “Even those of us I fancy you hate less than the others.  You need a woman Thomas, one woman who will give you a reason to do for joy what you now only do for necessity.”

It took all of his practiced charm not to walk away from her words and the knelling in his heart they caused.  “Some of us are not made for joy.  But pleasurable necessity?  That I can live with quite comfortably,” he smiled.

“If you saw the look on your face when you saw Miss Meadows talking to young William, I would say that necessity was making you wish that dueling hadn’t gone out of fashion.  I could be quite jealous.  Not at the look, but that you actually felt something strongly enough that one could note it in your countenance.  Our young buccaneer has made an impression of some kind on you, and thus all of your other admirers must gnash our teeth.”

Dinner was announced, “Walk me in, Sir Thomas.  When a woman turns forty-two she deserves to have the arm of the handsomest man at her party.”

“Honored,” he said with a small bow.  

Over her shoulder he could see Alice’s golden swain help her to her feet and offer his arm.  

“Thomas,” Winnie suddenly sounded series, “I like Alice Meadows very much.  For all that she is a consummate wallflower and seems… she is a serious girl, smart as paint, and she does not judge.  I think she is rather lonely here, away from her home and family.  Though she strikes me as one who might be lonely anywhere.  I think the earl’s boy actually likes her, and I would hate to see her made unhappy.”

“You know me, Winnie, I live to make ladies happy,” he said, smiling and smiling and smiling.

 

After dinner there was music.  

Well, it was called music, but Thomas had his doubts.  The daughter of one of WInnie’s friends sat at the piano and touched the keys often and in some manner of order, but what she produced was a series of notes with no real connection.  

The only beauty in his childhood in Allerdale Hall, apart from Teresa and his earliest days with Lu-, with his sister, had been the sound of the piano.  His mother had been cruel and had hated nearly everyone, but she played with real majesty.  All traits that she had passed on to her only daughter.  

Having wisely chosen to stand at the back of the music room, he was able to duck out in search of an after-dinner scotch without notice.  He knew that Mr. Ashdown kept a bottle in a small office upstairs, where he retreated when forced to stay in town.  He would be able to stay there and be private until the party ended and he could join Winnie.

As he passed one of the bedrooms, Thomas heard a low sound, a deep inhalation of pain, followed by a faint whimper and an exhalation of purest gratification.

It was not unusual for some illicit couple to slip away for a moment of intimacy at one of Winnie’s soirees, knowing that she would be tolerant and amused should they be discovered.

Normally Thomas would have simply chuckled and walked on but the sound was familiar.  Or as familiar as such a private sound could be, having never heard it before.

It was Alice.  He was certain.  Alice and perhaps her pretty, curly haired follower.  Perhaps his innocent, little artist was less innocent than she seemed.  

His hands ached, so tight were his fists.

It was none of his concern.

Then he heard her cry out in fear, and the sound of a chair falling over.

Fury, white and burning through his skin like phosphorus seeking bone, took him into the room before the small crash stopped.  He would kill that angelic looking bastard.

It was Alice, but she was alone in a small dressing room.  Alone and on the floor, a chair on it’s side next to her.  Her dress was rucked up, showing off one leg, shapely, in a fine stocking, made of lace that resembled vines of pale silk entwining her.  She wore a delicate slipper of ruby satin on that foot.

The other leg was smaller, stunted.  Instead of lace it wore a legging of quilted padding, and over it a sort of heavy, iron bracket, encasing her from the top of her thigh to her ankle, where a sturdy leather shoe with a thick sole ill-matched it’s danity sibling.  The bracket was held in place by a series of black leather straps, pulled very tight, and had a rather ingenious looking hinged knee.

What he had heard was Alice loosening the top strap, which had clearly been cinched too tight, with the padding not pulled high enough, so he could see an angry red welt on the inside of her thigh.  

They both froze, staring at each other.  Thomas trying to catch his breath.   Alice, trying to understand why he was there.  Finally, she gave him the smallest and saddest of smiles, “I hate to trouble you, Sir Thomas, but as you appear to have come to my rescue, would you be so good as to help me up?”

 

It had not been a terrible night for Alice.  Dinner was good, which was to be expected, Mrs. Ashburn loved food and employed one of the most famous chefs in London.  William Preston was amiable.  Her work was progressing again, even if she could not get the correct shade of red for his hair.  

But when she had seen Sir Thomas speaking to Winifred it had given her the strangest feeling.  Like something within her had twisted and was no longer working as it should.  

Because clearly she had turned into a ninny as regarded that man.  After all, she had watched him charm and flirt with his various friends for months and felt nothing other than curiosity, and enjoyment of his physical person.  

On top of the confusion of her thoughts and emotions, her brace had begun to rub her raw and make her leg go numb.  The maid she had in London was horrified by her deformity and always made a hash of helping her with it.  

All of which led her to this hideously humiliating moment, sprawled like a toddler, with her gown up and the person she most wished in all of the world to have a little dignity with staring down at her.  At her leg.  

No, she would never have any dignity with Sir Thomas, it seemed.  He would forever catch her out, revealing the clumsy, naive girl she made such efforts to hide.

She offered him her hand so he might assist her in rising.  Rather than take it, he bent down to lift her high in the air like a child, her face close to his.  Nearly as close as when he had kissed her the day before.  An event that she had spent every effort to put out of her mind since then, torn between an unladylike elation that such a perfect creature might find her desirable and the more recognizable fear that he was simply fortune hunting like every other man who had expressed interest in her person. 

Save that all others pursued her with weapons ill-suited for catching their prey, while Sir Thomas seemed to have been born to beard her in her own den.  

“Please, I am too heavy.  You must put me down,” Alice did not struggle, fearing he would drop her.  

“I plan to, but more comfortably than here,” he said, removing her from the room and into a small, cozy office, lined with books, a fire in the grate, and a large brown leather sofa that he gently set her on.  His breath was even and he showed no strain at her weight.  Clearly his well-delineated musculature was functional as it was pleasing to the eye.

“Does it pain you always?  It seems like it must be exhausting as well as uncomfortable,”  he asked, pouring them both a whiskey from a cart near the door.

Alice had tasted whiskey before, asking her father for a sip now and then, but had never had her own glass.  It tasted of earth and smoke, and was not so sweet as that from home.  She could smell wild country that it had come from and found it to her liking, though she knew enough to drink slowly.

When she could no longer avoid an answer she said, “Almost always by the end of the day it starts to bother me, if I have been active.  Mostly I notice when it does not hurt more than when it does.”

He was staring at her hand, and she realized that she had unconsciously started rubbing the top of her limb through her dress.  It was quite bad tonight.  

His eyes were nearly black in the darkened room, his mouth thin, and she thought his gaze would burn through the silk she wore.  It burned the skin beneath that he could not see and she felt langor and fire grow between her legs as it had done when he had kissed her.  When he had captured her hand and she had held his phallus.

Before she could say what was happening Thomas knelt before her, one knee bent so he could take her leg on it, and he had reached under her skirt to rub the aching place.  “Is the skin too delicate for me to touch?” he asked, after having already done so.

“Noooo...“ her voice was not her own.  She should push him away.  Instead she took another sip of whiskey and lay back, her head resting on the back of the sofa.  No one save the doctors, so many of them, that her father had hired to fix her, had ever touched her leg.  Not since she was a child.  

Even her mother had shied away from it when she had bathed her when she was little, claiming she feared she would hurt Alice, but in truth she was disgusted.

Now, to have this man, who looked like Lucifer by the firelight - fallen and impeccable - soothe her was like a strange dream.  His touch was deft and gentle.  If she shifted or made a noise he would either stroke gently or knead the twisted muscle, seeming to know by intuition what she was expressing by each wordless reaction.

His hand slid up, so the tips of his fingers brushed her silk drawers.  His dark voice was soft and seemed to thrum through her blood, “You are wet here, Alice.  Do you know what that means?”

She lifted her head to look at him.  There was no expression on his face.  She answered with a nod.

“You ache  _ here  _ now, don’t you?”

She did.  The ache had faded from her thigh, but his ministrations seemed to have caused it to move, so it was now centered between her legs and deep within her.  She should move away.

“When I ached before you, I forced you to service me.  To act the whore,” he said, not moving his hand, not looking away.

“You did not force me, Sir Thomas.  I did not try to escape.”

“Had you tried, I would not have allowed you to.”

Something in those words made the heat in Alice flash like fire in high grass.  “Will you force me likewise?  All you have to do is push my hand into place, move it to where you would and I will ease you. I’m already a whore, so it would little enough in the menu of my services,” his voice was as light as a razorblade.

Alice knew she should be offended by his words, but found she could not be.  Rather, she was offended for him that they should be true.

“I would not force you to do anything,” she said, her voice as serious as his gaze.  “Not for all the world.”

With a soft laugh he said, “You already have the world.  Keep looking at me, Alice.  Let me see you, let me devour you as you have devoured me so many times,” he said, a sudden fierceness to his voice as his fingertips worked through the slit in her drawers and found the place at the top of her sex that throbbed in time with her heart.  

The luscious wetness that seemed to pour out of her made his touch slick and he moved with surety, lightly circling the nub that she had found before herself.  But not like this!  Oh, not like this at all… What he did was not a simple act of alleviation but was like something holy being made wonderfully profane.  

One of his long fingers toyed with the place where she opened, teasing, taunting like a bully until she wanted to beg him to breach her or give her mercy.  Perhaps they were the same thing.  She felt too much to think and she had never known that one could feel relief and pleasure at being given freedom from thought or will, while also feeling an almost violent urge towards that pleasure’s inevitable ending.

He entered her, stroking in and out with a small, upward scoop of his finger while the hard heel of his palm pressed the hardened nub.  

Somehow, in spite of her leg, Alice found her hips circling, to make him rub harder, go deeper, not knowing why.  Her body made noises, wet and vulgar, and she moaned and her eyes closed.

Quick as a snake, Thomas’s other hand was under her skirt and pinched the top of her good thigh, “Open your eyes!”  He gritted out.  His jaw was tense and she could feel his erection where her bad leg draped over his lap.

The pinch made her jerk forward and now he was deep in her, finding another truth about her that she did not know herself.  A wild thrill of pain and then bliss shot through her, making her arch up against his hand, and against the pressure that she wished was there of his body pushing hers to the earth.  

He kept working at her until that same feeling happened again, but this time there was only bliss, and afterwards she fell back, panting and uncertain as to where she was for a few moments.

When she came to herself he had put her leg gently on the sofa and pulled her skirt down, “The next time I will use my mouth,” he said, finishing his whiskey and leaving her.

Later that night, as her carriage pulled up, Alice saw a figure standing across from the Ashfield house, their face shrouded but dark hair clear in the flicker of the gaslamp.  Even though she could see no expression, she had the distinct impression that whoever it was was staring at the home she had just left.

No, rather the intense rigidity of shoulder and neck seemed more that they were glaring at it with something akin to hatred. 

The pale skin and elegant slenderness of build made her think it could be Thomas, save she knew that he was still within.

Staying the night with their hostess no doubt.

With that lowering thought, she pulled her opera cloak tighter and settled back.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be clear on my position, I have nothing but respect for sex workers. In the case of this story I use the term 'whore' both as it was used at the time period as a description, and as an insult. As with any other job, there are those who become sex workers because they have a calling, because they need the money, or because they are curious about the work. Also as with any job, there are those who love it, those who hate it, and those who simply consider it work. Thomas's hatred of what he does is just that and should not be construed as the author's view of anything.


	6. Vis Vincit Sapientia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice and Thomas both consider their futures. But their pasts are never far away.

He had left Winnie a little after dawn’s break, having woken her in the dark to give her a last birthday tup, her luscious, generously sized body delightfully rosy in the growing light, her lusty gasps gratifying to his professional pride and his deep fondness for her.

When he had finished dressing he had even offered her a soft buss upon the lips before departing.

“Why, Thomas, whatever has gotten into you?” she asked as she rose, slipping on a silk kimono.  Her day was starting early as she was traveling north to take her children to see her family. “Extra loving?  Bonus kisses? You even seemed almost… happy last night. Certainly more involved than normal. Though I think perhaps not with me?  Did it have anything to do with the smell of Alice Meadow’s perfume on your shirt?” Winnie was big-hearted enough to sound coyly delighted rather than offended at the prospect that he had been thinking of loving another woman while in her bed.

Thomas could feel his cheeks pinking.  While he had washed his hands fastidiously as ever after his… interlude with Miss Meadows… with Alice, he had been unable to erase her entirely.  

Even then he caught a ghostly whiff of her neroli.  

As he shrugged into his overcoat, he gave Winnie a bit of a grin, even while feeling strangely shy.  Not the shyness of his childhood, which was a mix of trampled feelings and shame, but at the idea of having a warm, tender secret rather the kind he normally had, those made of icy, jagged stones.

Who was he becoming?  A man who blushed over what for him was an almost innocent moment with a virgin girl?  Who was grinning and had sweetly surreptitious thoughts of her afterwards while bedding another woman?

After leaving Ashfield House, Thomas had gone home to bathe and settle a few bills.  Winnie had been especially generous, and he wondered idly if it was her way of offering him his conge.  She seemed so pleased at the idea that he might be pursuing Alice that he wouldn’t be surprised.

Mrs. Clemmon’s home was fitted out with proper bathrooms unlike many of the residences in the neighborhood, but the hot water situation was iffy at best.  It was only this early in the day that he could be guaranteed it would not have all been taken by the impoverished classics scholar who was writing a new history of Pompeii in the attic, or the two young ladies who lived together to ‘save money’ but held hands when they thought no one looked.

After carefully tucking his shirt away, so that the honey and spice scent of bitter orange perfume would not be carelessly washed away just yet, he sank gratefully into the steaming water and wondered how Alice would act when he saw her later that day.

As had become their strange, but somewhat successful rhythm, that afternoon Thomas arrived promptly, even a touch early on this occasion, and quickly undressed.  After draping himself across the pillows with little more than a perfunctory greeting for and from Miss Meadows, she began her work.

Pretending that nothing had happened between them.  That the people that were joined in the creation of her art, and that the man and woman who had shared an intense but surreptitious intimacy were different creatures.

Each pair barely aware of their connection to the other.

Just as it had been every other time.

It was an unseasonably warm day, and the servant in charge of the fireplace had done her job with some enthusiasm, so the room was nearly hot.  Thomas could feel the lick of several beads of sweat working their way down his ribs, across his relaxed muscles.

Because he could not see her from the position he was in, he imagined her instead.  

The lock of hair that had looked to be coming loose from her braid would have finished working its way to freedom and would be waving softly in the air from the slightly opened window that she worked beside.  After a time her brown dress would have darker marks under her bosom and arms, from both the vigorous fire and the intensity of her work. He knew Alice had only days to finish the painting before her family arrived and so her whole being was bent towards her task.

As she switched colours her fingers would grow stained.  Blue, black, green, white… all cold, waiting for her to find that red that she sought for but could not find, but that would set the picture aflame when she did.  

Her eyes would be darting back and forth, from him to the page to the canvas.  Her graceful fingers, able to pick up what they needed without looking down because, he knew, she had placed all of her own tools out and could find them in the dark.  

There was something pleasant, dreamy almost, about the sound of the sable drifting over cloth and paint, the swish of it through the oils, the click when she changed brushes.  The faint sounds of breath and consideration as she observed her own work.

With some effort, he stopped himself from putting a hand to his mouth, and tried to stifle a yawn. He’d had little in the way of sleep the last night.  

Or the one before for that matter.

The nature of his work.  Though, how he longed for his own bed every time he laid down.

“I apologize for the heat,” she murmured to him, her voice soft and distracted.  Warm and far away.

“Not at all…”

He was asleep in moments.

 

That morning Alice had received roses and a call from William Preston.  They had chatted about the party the evening before, and the upcoming performance of Delius’s  _ A Village Romeo and Juliet _ at the Royal Opera House.  There was even a rumor that her country woman, the great Lillian Nordica would be on the bill.

William rather hoped he would be permitted to escort her to the performance.

Along with Miss Gregory, of course.

When she had been a younger girl he was exactly the boy she had dreamt of, who she would have fallen in love with from his first bright smile and words of unpitying kindness.  

Golden curls.  Eyes the color of the sky.  Tall. Graceful. Handsome. Handsome enough to cause foolishness.  Warm skin that had been touched but not abused by the sun. Everything warm and lovely.  Educated as well, which was not always true of the sons of the aristocracy. Or, more accurately, they were all educated but only a few seemed to have paid any attention during the process.  

But Alice felt nothing other than a distant fondness and some curiosity at the idea of using him as a model for the Archangel Michael, with unfurled, blindingly white wings that would not dwarf him - he was nicely tall - and a spear.

Her parents would love him.  His family wasn’t even entirely impoverished, just mildly embarrassed until the spring harvest.  

They were of an age, quite young, but no longer children.  

And unlike so many of his class he had ambitions.  Architecture was his driving passion and he had studied drafting as well.  He had no interest in being a kept man. At least not for any longer than would be needed to see his family estate settled and his older brother reprieved from his decadent lifestyle in Paris.  Her father would like that.

William always asked about her work, paying attention to the answers.  Not that she spoke very much of the truth. He told clever stories and seemed to understand when she was being sincere and when sardonic.  There was no cruelty in him. Or malice. 

But he looked so longingly at the dance floor when he sat out the balls and tea dances at her side.

Moreover, ungrateful thing that she knew herself to, she did not  _ want  _ him.  No matter how hard she tried.  

How often she would find herself listing his good qualities while comparing them to the less than sterling aspects of someone else.

They would be happy together, she knew that.  With very little encouragement he would come up to snuff and pursue her in earnest.  They could be affianced in weeks or even less, since he had been seen paying a kind of court to her over the last few months.  He would be a good father, and a faithful husband. They would almost always do what she wanted, when she wanted, and their fights would be few and far between with all ending in his not begrudging capitulation.  

And Alice would be a liar if she didn’t admit there was some pleasure in those ideas.  Who did not want to know their own hand would be upon the rudder of their life? 

Many women would not wish it so, she reasoned, but she did.  She had been raised to know her own mind and be unashamed of her willfulness.  Certainly she would not be here now, in the most scandalous possible situation.  Unashamed but cautious. 

Looking at Thomas Sharpe as he lay before her, she could not imagine marrying that gentle, considerate boy with his unburdened gaze and innocent frankness.  She had fallen in love with this man and his lavish suffering that he kept hidden behind a performance of a man of decadence and indifference. 

William would never grab her in a way that was cruel because he needed too much from her, nor then do things that a gentleman would never do to a lady.  

He would never kiss her and then seem to feel he had harmed her in some way, when in truth she had never been so happy.

He would never offer her comfort and pleasure and then look at her as if he hated her for accepting it.  And as if he would have died if she hadn’t.

Of course, William would never come to her and strip naked and lay out before her on the ground while she stared at him for hours.  Even for money, though he would marry her for it. 

He certainly wouldn’t have felt so comfortable that he would fall asleep under her gaze, his body shining with sweat in the firelight.

Alice considered.  

It must have been pure exhaustion on Thomas’s part. He  _ had _ spent the night with Winifred Ashfield, she was sure of it.  

Straightening her shoulders, Alice shunned her own feelings.  She could love Sir Thomas so hard it would feel like she was going to break a bone, but he was not for her.  For all of his teasing and playing with her- was just that.

Teasing and playing.

Paying her back for his resentment at needing her money and nothing else.  What else could it be?

When the brush - a very fine Italian one and not easy to replace - snapped between her fingers the sound was like a hunter’s shot.  

Thomas rolled over and pushed himself up from the ground in one graceful motion, his eyes hooded, completely awake.  “Alice?” He prowled towards her, looking from side to side as if expecting an attack, “Are you well?” his voice was rough with sleep.

She carefully sat down the two part of the brush and primly folded her hands, preparing to say, “Fine, Sir Thomas, just an incident with one of my tools.”  She would then add, while giving him a bright but rueful smile, “I am sorry for interrupting your nap.” Then they would share a small laugh and would take a short break.

Instead, she stared at her fingers in her lap, covered in paint and rough from too many washings and linseed oil.  They were the one part of her true self she could never disguise when she pretended to be ladylike so she always wore gloves.  “What did you mean when you said you would use your mouth? For what?” 

If she looked up she would be looking directly at his manhood.  Even though they had met previously it seemed forward to stare.

“It meant I would put my mouth between your legs, where I touched you last night, and bring you to completion.  As many times as you could bear, and then one time more.”

The idea of Thomas’s mouth anywhere on her made her turn to into a creature she did not understand.  Somehow she had gone within seconds from feeling like a foolish girl to feeling like the woman who had moaned and writhed under his touch, her back arched, as they stared at each other.  

“Why?  What would it- you wouldn’t-”

She couldn’t form the words because she did not have the ideas to push them forwards from her.

“What would I receive from such an act? Is that what you wish to ask?”  Thomas had reached down and took her hand so she stood before him, her gaze upon his chest.

“Well, yes.”  

He brushed his collarbone where it swept towards his shoulder, “Kiss me here,” he said softly.

Unable to stop herself, Alice brushed her lips across the elegant bone.  His flesh was warm and smelled wonderful, a bit of sandalwood and tobacco, vanilla and citrus and himself.  She buried her nose against him, one of her hands touching his chest for support, and each of the sparse, coiled hairs were distinct.  She nuzzled and then found herself kissing along the bone to his neck, her mouth slightly open, her tongue tasting just a touch here and there as if she were afraid to take in too much and not be able to stop herself.

It went on, and when Alice found herself again she was precariously upon her toes so she could hide in the crook of his neck.  Thomas had wrapped his arm about her, to keep her close and to relieve her leg.

His mouth brushed her ear, making her quake, “That is just the slightest  _ hint _ of what I would receive.”

His phallus was between them and she could feel it move when he spoke.  

She touched it, just a brush of her hand like her mouth had been, and suddenly she wished she was graceful and could kneel and put  _ her  _ mouth on  _ him _ .  She wondered about the taste, the texture, the scent of that part which she had made such a rough acquaintance with before and had studied at for her work.  

What would he allow and what would he put a stop to?  What noises would come from him, and would he touch her hair, her face, softly or would he clutch and pull and grip?  The thought of it, of any or all of it, made her damp, no, rather it made her damper. The moisture from her womanhood left her drawers and even petticoats sodden.

The place where he seeped she rubbed her thumb over, and the fluid that left him was silky.

He hissed in her ear, “Minx,” and lifted her quickly, taking her to the pillowed approximation of Loki’s cave where he lay her across the rocks and pushed her legs apart.  “Don’t let me cause you harm, but do not attempt to halt me, either,” he said, the blue of his eyes hidden by the blackness of his pupils, his hands busily pushing her skirts up.

 

If Thomas had ever needed further proof of his abnormality, his increased arousal, almost blinding, deeply painful at the sight of the heavy brace on Alice’s leg was it.

There was something about knowing this part of her, this crude necessity beneath her skirts and placid demeanor.  He traced his fingertips lightly across the straps and hinge at the knee. It was ingenious but heavy and awkward.  He started to work one of the straps along the top when Alice sat up, her eyes fearful.

“No!  You mustn't.  Please,” she said with tears in her voice.

“Oh,  _ ma mie _ , today I will let you keep one thing from me, but nothing else,” he sighed against her mouth, running his knuckles under the split in her drawers, along her seam, until they were wet and she was panting.  He licked them clean, watching her watch him do it, her mouth open.

Then he took her drawers in his hands, ripping them into pieces as he kissed her.  “Lie down, sweet girl,” was all he said before settling himself on the cushions and burying his nose in her arbor, her cloister, her bower.  Her cunt, her pussy, her luscious, soaking cock-trap.

When he had been a boy, and he and … his sister had played together and fallen into the pit, she had loved to worship him with her mouth.  She worshipped him and treated him as her favorite darling and could do never enough for him. He had never acted the supplicant to her, however.  The wetness, the warmth of her hair, the utter nakedness of that most hidden place had always made him shy from her.

He had learned the art as a young Cyprian, but had rarely offered it after his persona was complete.  The jaded lover he played prefered to be pleased, to make love with a chill hauteur that drove aristocratic women wild.  

Now he engaged in the most blatant gluttony, the haughty, clever gigolo replaced by a rapacious lover wanting only to drive Alice mad.  So she would be trapped in this Bedlam with him, because he had clearly lost his reason, seducing the sheltered, precious daughter of such a rich man, one who would never let his child marry a whore.  Even one with an old title, elegant manners, and shiny, shiny dancing slippers.

She fisted the cushions on either side of her hips as he suckled lightly on her pearl, and she tried to speak, “What… what….”

“Shhhhh… Shhhh…” he said to her hot slit and then nipped where he had sucked.

Her body convulsed under him and she made a high sound, her body rocking hard with each throb of her cunt as he licked the pain away, making her come again.  

She sagged and moaned.  Before the heartbeat clenching of her had stopped he slipped a finger in and fucked her methodically, stroking deeply at those strange and sensitive places that he knew were unknown to her, his tongue cupping around her clitoris so he could massage it in time with his penetrations.

This time her completion left them both drenched.

He crawled up her body to kiss that taste into her mouth, to make her as intoxicated with that essential truth about herself as he already was.  

He had never kissed anyone as he did Alice.  As a man and nothing else.

Rolling off of her body, he lay next to her so he could see her slumberous, dazed eyes while he quickly finished himself.

Alice carefully, so not to hurt her leg, leaned up on her elbow and with a look of wonder touched the pool of spunk left on his belly with one, gentle finger.  She tasted it, her eyes closed in concentration.

“We both taste of the sea,” she said, laying back down, her head upon Thomas’s shoulder.  

His heart beat against his chest at the thoughtful tone of her voice and the sigh of contentment as she snuggled in.  It beat and beat as if it might finally be freed.

 

The next day, along with his morning post and papers, Thomas received a note from Alice, in her neat copperplate script, that her parents had arrived early and that she would be unable to paint for the foreseeable future.  

There was also an invitation to a dinner at the house the Meadows had taken in Kensington the following week. 

Unable to concentrate on anything after that, it was not until he was at last minute luncheon with Adella Carstairs - who had long hoped to be added to his list of dance partners - that he heard about the terrible crime that had taken place at Guise Priory the day before, and the dreadful fate of Madeline Lansdowne.

  
  



	7. Spe Vincit Scientiam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas runs from his past but is forced to face Alice's.

The talk of London at the beginning of that season was split between the dreadful events at Guise Priory and the arrival of the wildly rich Mr. and Mrs. Meadows from America and what they meant for Alice Meadows’ matrimonial prospects.  Had a groom been chosen? 

But for Thomas he was in a constant state of anxiety and fear, the likes of which he had not endured since his childhood.  

Each morning he woke drenched in sweat, his sheets a gordian knot, or rather like the arms of a too importunate lover, one he was desperate to escape.  The image of his mother’s corpse, floating in her own blood, bits of her flesh on the walls and beneath his shoes as Lucille took his hand to show him that he would not longer need to fear her, would now forever be entangled with memories of Madeline lying beneath him in bed, panting and begging.

Would she have sounded the same, her face sweating and contorted, trying to appeal to her murderer for a mercy that did not exist in this cold, dark world?  

Would anything about that murderer have reminded Madeline of him? 

No.  It could not be.  

It could  _ not _ .

Drink failed him, and Thomas found himself in Limehouse for the first time in years, searching for a stronger form of peace.  Fortunately the slightly hazy distance the opium gave him created an even more aristocratic, chill disassociation when with his  _ dance partners _ .  And he could go on and on, the small urge he had to finish diminished by the drug.  Sometimes he forgot what he was doing as he was doing it, the thoughtless action of his hips, mere muscle memory carrying on while he was in a distracted fog.

Adelia Carstairs had begged for mercy.  And then fell to her knees and begged him to return the next night.  Claiming that he had made her his slave.

He had jerked himself away from her, horrified when he saw the bruises on her thighs and hips.  Signs he had not intended to leave.

“Will your… your husband…” he gestured to the purpling flesh.

“He wouldn’t notice if I were hacked to death in my bed, like Lady Lansdowne!” Adelia said with lurid, hysterical relish.  At that moment everything that he dreaded about himself, about life altogether, boiled over him in a wave of blood.

With a moan of horror, Thomas had fled into the night and cancelled his appointments for the following days, smoking enough opium to make even the distance from his bed to the bath too great. Fetching food was far beyond him, and so he lived on smoke and water. 

The morning of the Meadows’ dinner party he woke filthy and thin, his beard surprisingly heavy. That, combined with his sunken, black rimmed eyes in his mirror left him shocked.  

If Alice were to see him now she would search in vain for her grand pagan god.  He looked now like a martyr from the early church. Perhaps she would use him for Saint Sebastian, bound to the tree and pierced through the heart and side by arrows?  

He imagined himself thus and shuddered: the idea of being bound, unable to run, terrifying him suddenly, leaving his hands shaking.  Looking back to his bed, he saw the pipe on the small table beside it and longed to return to his blankets and oblivion. Two steps, then three, and then his hand was touching the bone shaft, carved with dragons and bowled in brass.  

There was still a tiny ball of the sticky drug left, and coal in the lamp…

On the other side of his bed, on the window sill, was a broken sable brush, taken in secret from the trash bin in Alice’s studio.  If it had been whole it would have been the same length as the pipe. 

He considered consigning the last of the drug to his vile chamber pot so to end the temptation, but when Thomas pondered the state he would most likely return from dinner in, he let it lie.  Then, with a shudder he went to punish himself into wakefulness with a cold bath and an icy shave.

 

Alice let her maid finish her hair and then dismissed her so she could sit quietly for a few moments and compose herself.

She was happy her parents were in London.  She was. She had missed them. Her mother’s sparkle and quickness, her father’s calm demeanor and steady mind.  The way that they looked at each other, the love that they still shared after so many years, was the rock upon which she had built her life.  Not so much expecting such love - she recognised its rareness - but simply the knowledge it could exist was a very steadying thing.

And yet.

She missed her work.  

Oh, she still sketched quite often.  Alice had been planning a portrait of her parents since she was a girl, but she wanted it to be a surprise so rather than having them sit for her she would often sketch them at odd times.  She also took time to work on still lives, enjoying the discipline of creating a perfect shade to match the bruise on a pear, the glaze of an old plate, and describing the curve of a shadow on wood.  But none of it fired her.

None of it was her true work.

All of that was neatly packed away.  She had barely had enough time to let the largest painting dry enough so it was safe to crate.  Even then she wasn’t sure and it plagued her to think of it being damaged.

It plagued her to think of it all.

And of Thomas.

He would be at dinner tonight.  

She was not sure if she was more surprised that he had been invited, or that he had accepted.  While Thomas was accepted in British society, with an understanding that the age of his title and the fact that he was unmarried and had no heir, meant that a blind eye was turned to certain truths about him.  American society was much more puritanical and certainly less practical. 

Wealth and youth made her country unforgiving of weakness.

It have been nearly a week since she had seen him.  Since he had done what he had done to her. 

Every night she woke from a dream of him, her body tense and faltering on the edge of pleasure.  She had more than once started to put her hand in place between her legs and try to mimic his actions, but stopped.  

It seemed lonely to not hear his breathing and smell his hair and his skin.  It seemed that anything she felt would be a lie without them.

“Alice?  Darling?”  Her mother leaned in the door, “How lovely you look tonight.  Your hair is quite the style. Perhaps you would like to make your way with me to the ground floor?”

It was her mother’s way of saying, “The guests won’t arrive for a time, and it would be unpleasant for them to see you thudding down the stairs.”

Her hand tightened on her cane, and the kid of her gloves groaned, “Yes, mother, that would be fine.”

The party was a large one, the Meadows feeling they needed to make up for the many gracious invitations their daughter had received over the last year.  

 

Thomas did not ride often.  He could not afford to keep a horse in London for his own convenience or pleasure.  In Cumbria there were a few animals to pull wagons and do other work around the mines, huge, placid things, far different than the stable of hunters his father had taken such pride in.  

That he had been afraid of as a child.

He had not learned to enjoy riding until after his father’s death.  Even then, it had been years until the memory of James Sharpe’s scornful gaze and claims that Thomas ‘rode like a peasant,’ had faded enough for him to enjoy the freedom of the saddle. 

Winnie and her husband had several horses for their children, in addition to their carriage animals.  She had told him that he was free to keep them from getting lazy whilst they were in the country, and he would take an early ride in Rotten Row every Thursday, for the exercise and the exhilaration of the run.

But the morning after the Meadows dinner… 

After meeting her handsome, doting father, her beautiful, refined mother, he needed to be in the cold air of the morning.  After watching Alice being escorted and courted by William Preston of the clear, unguilty eyes. Who cosseted her and danced attendance, but always in a subtle way, knowing that he was not the official swain as of yet.  After hearing Alice laugh at Preston’s joke, and the way her head inclined towards him as they sat next to each other at dinner.

After the way Alice had greeted him at the door.  The way her eyes widened and narrowed at the sight of him, a small shudder running through her frame, shaking her shoulders and causing her mouth to turn ever so slightly down.  

After the way she had introduced him to her parents, as she would an acquaintance.

Thomas ran a rough hand through his hair that morning.  He looked even worse, having bathed himself in whiskey when he returned home, looking at his horrible rooms.  Looking at his pitiful worktable and the absurd project he had been tinkering with for the last weeks. 

Of course she had treated him as an acquaintance!  What should she have said?

“Mother, father, this is Sir Thomas Sharpe, baronet.  He owns a crumbling house and a dying mine in the north.  His parents are dead. His sister is mad. He whores himself for enough money to keep his revolting home from sinking into the earth and he strips to his skin daily for our money.  And he has taken dreadful liberties with me, knowing I am too innocent and lonely to be able to defend myself against him.

“Because he thinks himself in love with me.”

With a quick, uneven shave and a rough wash, he dressed in his father’s old riding suit and left before the sun was up for Hyde Park.

He prefered to go out a bit after dawn, knowing he would have most of the paths to himself and that the other riders he did encounter would be there for privacy as well and unlikely to interrupt him with chat.

The morning was slightly brighter than the last few days had been, and the combination of thick dew and the sun made the mostly bare branches and bushes along the Row glisten.  He had only had the roan gelding, Apollo, that he favored out for perhaps five minutes, not even enough time for either of them to warm up when he heard someone call him.

“Sir Thomas!”

To his surprise it was Mrs. Meadows. 

She was on a very fine, grey mare, dressed in a navy satin riding costume, complete with a dashing hat and matching gloves.  Her seat was excellent, her whip clearly an affectation rather than a necessity. She rode side-saddle and alone.

He waited for her to catch up, smiling and cursing in his heart.  He had a devil of a hangover and wanted to think as little of Alice as possible.  Whatever had begun between them had been severed and had not begun to scab over yet.

“I had heard that you liked to ride here.  I am so glad to have this chance to talk, we barely said more than hello and goodbye last evening,” she said, a serene expression on her face.  Alice took after her, but what on the daughter was a quiet sort of beauty was more obvious and bold in the mother with her huge, forget-me-not blue eyes and Venetian blonde hair, still unfaded by age.  Only the finest lines about her eyes, and a small drooping of her lips, gave any hint that she could have an adult child.

“Yes, I regret that as well,” he said, lying with perfect ease.

“My husband is not a great rider.  He grew up in different circumstances, and for him animals are only for use.  He plans to obtain a motor car for us to use the rest of our time here. He does not care for me to ride, either, but will not force me to stop.”

“They are quite the rage now.  Automobiles.” He could be as dull as the next man, if need be.

They walked quietly for a few moments.  Thomas could feel Mrs. Meadows gathering not her courage - the woman was clearly as fearless as her daughter - but her words.

“Naturally, Alice does not ride.”

He had no answer for that, but felt his body tighten.  Was she disappointed that her child was incapable in this way?  Was she disgusted by Alice’s physical weakness? He knew it was not his place, that it would perhaps reveal more than he should, but he prepared to defend her even if it was a mistake.

But Mrs. Meadows tone was flat, soft, not judging.

“Do you know how my daughter came to be crippled, Sir Thomas?”

Shocked, he could not answer.  Why would she ask such a thing?  Or even think he might know something of such a private nature.

“My Alice was a late child.  She was meant to be born in the spring, but she was stubborn.  Oscar said she was waiting for all of the flowers to bloom so she could see their colors.  Alice was born loving beauty.”

She looked at Thomas, an openly sly smile on her lips.  “It is one of the traits she shares with her mother.”

The boy he had been would have blushed.   _ He _ did not.  Even as his stomach curdled at the thought of it, he wondered if Alice’s mother sought to dance with him.  It twisted at the idea that he could not afford to say no to her, should she wish to be partnered.

Thomas lifted a brow, calling upon centuries of breeding and arrogance.

Mrs. Meadows lifted her hands, one holding the whip, the other the reins, and applauded with a laugh.  “Oh, how perfect you are, Sir Thomas! How exactly in character. You were not in character last night, I think, when young William took Alice’s hand.  It made me like you very much.”

“Mr. Preston is a very fin-.” he had thought the whole speech in his head, not thinking he would need to share it with another, but for himself alone.  William Preston was a fine, bright young man, thoughtful, kind, and he would make an excellent husband. He would no doubt admire Alice’s art and be happy to share in her quiet wit and fortune in equal measure.

Mrs. Meadows spoke over him.  “But I was telling you about Alice’s…” she stopped herself from saying whatever word was in her mind.  She stopped smiling and continued, “Alice was late and I was very young. Hardly yet eighteen. I was bored, so very bored, and hot.  I was so very bored, and it was a torturous summer. Chicago is built on a swamp, and even though the house Oscar built is near the lake, you feel the wet muck under the streets every summer.  I was bored, and hot, and young, and spoiled. Oh, so spoiled. 

“My family was wealthy, from back east, and I had everything.  But when Oscar came to Boston he was so rich, so forceful, that I was married and living in our new, rough city before I knew what had happened to me.  I had spent months cooped up in a vast mansion being catered to and I wanted to go riding.”

Thomas said nothing.  He could imagine her, so very young and lovely, married to a man she barely knew, in a strange place, massive with child, and suffering or thinking she was, having never truly suffered before.

“Oscar left for work that day, as he did every morning before I woke and I decided I could not bear another moment in the house.  I had my horse saddled, determined to ride by the lake for just a short while. Fifteen minutes by the water, to feel the air. Fifteen minutes.  The stableman was horrified but he did what I asked. How could he not?” 

She half turned to Thomas, her mouth in an ironic twist, “I rode too fast, of course.  I was ungainly, and had not been in the saddle closer to a year than not and it was… It was not that I was thrown, you understand, it was that she fell on me.  My beautiful Rose. She had come from home with me and I killed her as sure as I crippled my child and stole any future children from my husband. She screamed. Have you ever heard a horse scream, Sir Thomas?”

He had.  

He did not speak.

“I was not… present for the first few weeks of Alice’s life, as I was near to dying.  Which would only have been fair. But even as I was delirious I could hear her scream and scream.  Her poor, tiny voice was worn to croaking like a little frog because she cried and howled so much, in pain, in hunger no doubt.”

The road took a turn and they passed Lord Ethelstan and his mistress, a certain Miss Jones.  Everyone nodded politely, but did not stop.

“Eventually I was able to care for her, but her leg...  It was much worse then. You should understand that. It was … it was terrible.  As she grew it was so badly twisted she could not wear a brace and Oscar began to seek out specialists to rectify her.”  He could see the leather of her gloves grow thin on the knuckles. “Do you know what that means? What these  _ specialists _ did?”

She did not wait for him to answer.  He did not wish to, at any rate.

“They broke her leg and reset it.  Sometimes in a brace, sometimes in a great contraption that would trap her in bed for months.  They broke her leg over and over again. My child. Snap. Snap. Snap. She would scream even more then. I would stand in the hall.  They would not let me in the room, fearing my feminine delicacy would hinder their work. She stopped calling for me after the second time…  The paper in the hall was gold and brown. I ripped most of it down with my bare hands one night.

“It is a wonder she can speak, I sometimes think.”  Mrs. Meadows looked into his eyes, not seeing them, and nodded.  “It is a wonder. Her voice is rather pleasant, actually.”

Thomas’s body was hot, as if his blood was forcing its way against his skin, a prickly, painful heat.  It was all he could do not to lean to the side and vomit or force his mount from the path and into the thicket to escape the woman.  

The discipline of the terrorized child he had been served him well and he neither flinched nor flew.

“I hate horses.  I hate riding. I go every day I can because I will not let myself forget that I am the one who did these things to my child.  I dreaded to touch her when she was little, for fear of hurting her further. She thinks I find her distasteful,” she added the last with a bit of a laugh.  

He had heard a woman laugh that way before.

“While I am humbled by your confidences, Mrs. Meadows, I cannot say why-”

Now she stopped her horse, neatly turning the animal so she could face him, whilst he stopped as well.  “Sir Thomas, I am not a fool, nor an innocent. When we heard from Miss Gregory about my daughter’s … interest in you my husband had you looked into.  I am certain you know what we learned. My husband invited you last night to take your measure and offer to pay you off to leave Alice be. But I saw how she looked at you, when you were looked away.  And how you looked at her when she did not see.

“Of course Alice never knows when she is being seen.  But I know what I saw. I want you to offer for my daughter, Sir Thomas.”

“What!?”  Surely the woman was mad!

“I want Alice to be Lady Sharpe.  I want you to take my husband’s money and do whatever you want to do with it to fix your fortures.  I want you to travel, take Alice to Paris and Rome, and Vienna, and any other old, musty place she might like.  To see paintings, to study, to sit in the sunlight. I want you to make her happy. If you don’t, my husband will ruin you.  Not that it would be difficult, there is little enough left of you to destroy.”

Thomas’s head throbbed.  “Mrs. Meadows, surely-”

“You love her, do you not?”

“Too much to marry,” he said before he could think to lie.  “Alice should have a finer man than me.”

“But you are what she wants.  I am assuming you have a family ring or some other such thing, if not, call on my husband’s secretary, Mr. Payne.  He will be happy to find you a suitable piece. Something old, so it looks right. Oh,” she lifted a small watch that was pinned to the front of her habit, “look at the time.  Alice and her father will be waking and I have so many things to do.”

“Mrs. Meadows, I cannot … there are reasons that I must not marry  _ anyone _ , but certainly not Alice.  You do not understand-”

She tapped her hat smartly to fix it in more in place, “I will expect you to come to the house sometime in the next two days, Thomas.  I may call you ‘Thomas’ now, mayn’t I? Enjoy the rest of your ride. H’yah!” 

Mrs. Meadows set her spurs in and her mare took off at a breakneck pace down the wet path.

Thomas, stunned, looked after the woman and wondered if perhaps she wished to slip.

His heart thudded in time with his aching head, and now alone, he quickly dismounted and disappeared into the bushes, letting himself be ill.


	8. Proculdubio Velle Se Vincit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A proposal is made and answered.

Alice had just returned from a visit to Mr. Selfridge’s new store with her father and was hoping for an opportunity to rest before she had to change for dinner at the Preston’s, when she was told she had a visitor.

The afternoon had been pleasant.  Harry Selfridge was an old social friend and business enemy of her father’s from home who had decided to settle in London and share some American mercantile innovation.  He had given them a personal tour at his vast, ultra-modern emporium, always at a leisurely pace to accommodate her limp. Alice had always liked him and his leaving Chicago had been a loss to all of his acquaintances, as he was always a fine host and witty at dinner. 

Her father had admired the elegant new store, while not being certain about the idea of shopping as entertainment.  Eventually he had grudgingly admitted to Harry that some of his modern ideas - the restaurants and tea rooms in particular - that kept the ladies in his store longer, thus allowing them an excuse to keep spending, were quite clever.

They left with several very expensive gifts, including a new set of imported Italian paint brushes for Alice (Harry was the kind of man who remembered something specific about every lady he met), and a promise to bring Mrs. Meadows and come to dinner sometime in the next few weeks.

“You can tell me about all of the latest politics back home and your wife can tell me about the scandals,” he said, a broad smile splitting his elegant beard, as he slowly handed Alice into the carriage.  “And Alice and Cora can talk about art and make the rest of us feel like uncouth savages.”

Now, wishing above all to remove her brace and perhaps to nap if the throbbing should allow it, Alice found herself irritably stumping back down the stairs, unable to be quiet as her leg was so heavy,.  

It was William Preston, no doubt.  He had been ever more present and importunate lately, seeing his seat beside her and her parent’s smiles at their dinner party three days before as a sign he was about to become her official suitor and so had danced even greater attendance upon her since.  Even though she would be seeing him a few hours at his parent’s she imagined it was romantic gesture for him seem unable to wait that amount of small time.

She wondered if he would bring her lilies again.  Alice hated lilies, they reminding her of funerals, the colorless and drooping things, like bored, spoiled girls in white dresses, unescorted at a tea dance.

Rather than William, it was Thomas waiting for her in the drawing room, dressed in black as ever, sitting on the edge of the green silk loveseat her mother had just purchased.  Alice stopped for a moment in the doorway, gathering herself. 

Taking a steadying breath.

It was the first time they found themselves alone together since-

Choosing to not study that memory, she walked in and he sprang to his feet, as if startled from some deep thought.

He looked surprisingly better than when she had seen him last.  The night of the dinner party, when her father had introduced them it had taken her a great effort to not show her concern and she had stopped herself from touching his sleeve.  Already lean, Thomas had lost enough weight that his normally beautifully tailored clothing hung from him like something borrowed. The edge of his jaw and blade of his cheek were no longer perfectly defined but were painful, and his eyes were sunked and rimmed in irritable red.  

When she had taken his hand, the neat, pale kid glove felt as if it contained twigs and his hair had been dishevelled, though that might have been the fault of the wind that had howled even through well glazed windows of the townhome.  He seemed to be ailing. Withering.

Only his voice was unaltered, resonant and cultured.  His society voice, amused and smooth.

It had given her a pang, very small and very far within her heart, that he had used that facile smoothness even with her as he said all of the expected things and made the minutest of talk.  Though their having never been in privacy that night, what choice had he? What had she expected of him, after all?

But now, though still too thin, it gave him more of what the Bard had called a ‘lean and hungry look’.  His suit was one she did not know, rather out of fashion but splendidly fitted with a gorgeous black satin neckcloth that made him look like a courtier from a different age.  The dark curls that so often seemed disobedient had been ruthlessly tamed and now lay in a way that showed to their best effect the perfection of his bones.

“Miss Meadows,” he called her, though they were now alone, while he smiled and gave the smallest and deftest of bows.  

A drawing room smile.  

And a dance partner’s bow.  

“Tho-, Sir Thomas,” she gave an equally small curtsey, feeling herself failing to hide a small grimace at her late in the day stiffness of movement.

If he noted it he politely pretended not to.  After all, what could be ruder than someone who was little better than an acquaintance commenting on a personal infirmity?  She took the chair beside the loveseat and motioned for him to sit as well. “Shall I call for tea?” 

“Please do not trouble yourself.  Unless you would care for some?” 

“I am quite well.”

Neither spoke for a time, a silence that gave Alice the deepest of discomfort.  Thomas looked at her, a wisp of his polite smile still on his lips, his eyes like mirrors, his body leaned towards her.  

It was exactly as he was with every other lady.  She had seen it time and again at balls and teas and dinners.  Drawing them in and offering them nothing but themselves through a filter, in return.

Alice looked down at her hands and watched them seem to fold and unfold themselves without her direction, unable to bear looking at him when he seemed unable to see her in return.  When he seemed to barely be present at all. 

Finally, Alice’s gave in. “Is there something I can do for you, Sir Thomas?”

His mouth opened slightly, and then closed, catching the words that were about to escape.  Instead, he rose and walked to look out on the darkening afternoon. “It looks to snow tonight,” he murmured.  

Alice felt a bitterness like bile trying to force its way from her.  It was oddly shaped and stuck in her throat, “Are you really going to speak about the weather?  As you might to anyone? How ridiculous.” She was choked and saddened. For however strange what had been between them had been, it had always been honest in the way that only that which was not constrained by good manners and social niceties could be. 

Thomas turned back from the window and gave her a full, near laughing smile.  He could not hear her unhappiness, or was simply choosing to pretend he did not, “You are right, of course.  It is _ quite  _ ridiculous. But I find myself about to be hoping for a… possible arrangement with you that is anomalistic even for us.”  Then he did laugh.

At that moment she hated him.  For the sake of that laugh that was utterly dismissive of her work, of their joined purpose, and everything that those things had brought about between them, she hated Thomas Sharpe and wanted to never see him again.

When she did not laugh as well he faltered and stopped.  “My apologies. I find myself rather nervous and have put myself on the wrong foot with you today.  But, you see, I have never been in the position I am now and I find it hard to see how to proceed.”

That at least  _ seemed _ honest, though with this public version of the man she could not be certain.  There was an element to this meeting that put Alice on edge so she found herself being rude, “What do you want, Thomas?”

He nodded to himself and then approached her, standing above her.  This close she could smell sandalwood shaving soap and the freshness of his linen, but for the first time there was not even the hint of whiskey about him.  Before she could rise, he had taken a knee before her and put his hand tentatively out in a beseeching gesture. “May I?” he asked, but then took her hand before she might answer. 

Thomas’s hands were rougher than was typical for a gentleman, especially one who lived in town.  For a moment the callus that ran like a bar under his fingers scraped lightly over the ones on her fingertips.  Because she had not painted in weeks, she had been able to go without gloves today. The place where the work that he did with his hands, those projects she had seen in his rooms, met with her own striving.  Alice swallowed and Thomas looked at her, not smiling, his eyes narrow with thought. 

For the first time she could see the tiredness in them.

Unthinkingly she reached out and touched the bruised looking flesh beneath his eyes.  The skin was velvety and thin. His eyes fluttered briefly closed, the sweep of his lashes brushing her finger, sending a confusion of sensation though her body that left her breasts peaked and her sex aching and damp.

Then he snatched her hand away and pressed it to her other, so now both were trapped within one of his.

His social smile was back, and his eyes were wide and empty of himself.

“Miss Meadows.  No, _ Alice _ .  I find myself in a place which I never thought I would be in.  Not that most men do not spend some part of their lives considering their future, as well as the future of the name.  But my situation, as is thankfully already known to you so that I need not present the unpleasant details, is such that I had long since resigned myself to the life of a bachelor.  But these last weeks, as I have come to know you and to esteem you, it has come to me that it need not be so. You are different from other women-”

It took a great effort for Alice to not jerk her hands away at that platitude.

“-so much so that I find myself daring to hope that my circumstances - straightened finances, soiled reputation, and all, are something that you could find it in yourself to overlook.  That knowing my esteem for you as both a lady and an artist would allow you to take an offer of marriage from me - not as an insult but as a compliment to a woman who I admire and respect above all others.”

With his free hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring box which he proffered to her while squeezing her hands almost to the point of pain, as if not actually wanting her to take the offering.

Finally, he let go and Alice resisted the urge to rub at her sore fingers.  Instead, not sure how to do otherwise she took the box and opened it, the little hook holding it closed swinging easily free, hypnotically taking her gaze, so dazed and uncertain was she.  

Within was a ring of the most modern style - a large but not vulgar, round-cut diamond haloed by tinier stones, all set in platinum.  It was quite lovely, but uninteresting. The pale metal and the colorless stones glittered but had no life. The design’s perfect symmetry was pleasing but nothing more.  It did not compel, it would draw flattery for its value alone.

Alice knew two things immediately, that Thomas had not picked such a ring, nor could he ever have afforded it.

Mouth suddenly dry, Alice softly closed the box and held it so tightly the edges would leave red marks on her palm.  “May I ask you why?”

“Why what?” he replied, “I thought that I made my feelings clear.”

“No, you explained why you thought I might marry you, in spite of what you view as your shortcomings.  You did not say why you wished to marry me other than you think it is possible that I would say yes and that you think rather well of me.  Those do not seem to be much in the way of a reason.”

If she had hoped that a frank questioning might solicit frankness in return, she was disappointed as his expression remained polite and social.  “Because you would make a fine wife, Alice. You are beautiful and intelligent, and gifted, though I am one of the lucky few who knows just how greatly, and you are not judgemental.  I am at that point in life where I wish to change, to settle, to perhaps have a family.”

“And you esteem me.”

“Greatly.”

Without warning him Alice stood and took her cane, pressing the box back into his hand.  “I thank you for the most flattering offer. I am quite overcome and will need some time to consider.”

Scrambling almost ungracefully, but no, he was never ungraceful, that was her state.  Rather, Thomas uncoiled from where he knelt at her feet, in a perfect motion. Alice studied the carpet, no longer wishing to look for her friend, or whatever she might style him going forward, where he was hidden behind this series of platitudes and expressions.

“Of course.  Might I return tomorrow, or would you prefer more time to confer with yourself?”  

“And my parents, of course.”

Something in that made him stiffen.  There was a perceptible change in the air around him. 

He took a step towards her, so they were very close, so his looming body threw a shadow that covered her.  He leaned down to speak closely, his breath caressing her ear, her throat, his lips near enough that just once they brushed her as he spoke, his voice serious.

The voice he had used before, to make her still and feel warm.  

“I know you Alice.  You will not take the counsel of any other in this life.  Not even of ones who love you. I will see you tomorrow, at this same time.”

Then he lifted her hand and pressed a quick, dry kiss to the back of it and was gone before she weakly sat down again.

With her hands shaking she rang the bell.

“Parks?”

“Miss?”

“Would you please inform my mother that I am feeling unwell and will not be able to attend the Preston’s tonight?  She needn’t check on me, but if a tray could be arranged for later?”

After the servant left, Alice slowly made her way back to her room.  Her mother was still out and her father was probably writing a long letter to his manager in Chicago about what he has seen at Selfridge’s and how certain he is that those innovations could be finessed to suit an American consumer.  Knowing neither would see her, she let her leg drag and leaned heavily on her cane, her back a bit bent. 

Could she marry Thomas?  

Her parents would allow it.  Or could be persuaded to. If she convinced them that she truly wanted him, that he could make her happy.  

Exhausted, in her room Alice fell onto her bed, having to reach down and pull her leg up.  Even the thought of sitting up to undo her brace was beyond her.

What had caused his sudden change in feeling towards her?  Had caused him to end their peculiar intimacy in favor of treating her as just another lady to be charmed?  No doubt it had been the dinner party, and the confirmation brought on by the sight of her mother’s jewels, her father’s motor car, the lavishness of their lifestyle, that the Meadows were just as wealthy if not more so than had been rumoured.  

Thomas had seen that with a ring and a few pretty words he could restore his family’s name and his own reputation.  

She could say yes.

If she said yes, it felt like it would sever what was between them.  She would just be another woman that he had offered his services to and that had chosen to purchase.  Only on a more permanent basis. And even if it was his idea, would he not come to hate and resent her as he did nearly all of those other ladies?

Or would she be in that small number with Winnie Ashburn of those that he found tolerable and amusing?  

As sickened as she was by that idea, it was still tempting.  

With Thomas she could work.  She could paint anything she liked, as often as she could.  Any home they established she could insist on having a studio.  And he would still model for her, Alice was certain of that. After all, she would still be paying for him.  

What a Lucifer he would make… A modern one, with mechanicalized wings to replace those he had lost in his fall from heaven.  Tipping his hat, as a gentleman would, courteous, and revealing his red tipped horns.

They would have a beautiful home, and someday perhaps there would be beautiful children in it, with dark hair and hazel eyes.  Everything would be what she had always hoped for and thought impossible. 

Save that only one of them would be in love.  

Some women have thought that they could, given time, make their husband love them.  But Alice had seen enough unhappy, unbalanced matches to know it wasn’t always possible.  Other women would feel that marrying a man who they were in love with but that did not love them in return would be too painful to tolerate.

Alice knew that she could bear a great deal.  

After picking at the dinner that was sent up to her, Alice had one of the maids pour her a tub and then dismissed her for the rest of the night.  When her parents had come over, her father had brought the portable stair and railing that he’d had built to allow her to bathe without needing aid getting in and out of the water, which had been a great relief.

Sitting on a stool beside the steaming tub, the air scented with heliotrope, she finally removed her brace, careful to lean it where she would be able to retrieve it easily.  Though she longed to let it clatter to the floor and break some of the expensive tiles beneath her feet. The loudness and the crack would be very satisfying. With a tiny shake she tried to work out the needles and numbness.

With a practiced motion she rolled down the padded stocking she wore beneath it, which stank of her exertions and the grease that coated the joints of the brace.

Normally Alice would not look at her leg.  She could function quite well without ever seeing more than a glimpse of it after all of this time.

Now she stared at herself.  

It had long been her idea that when she married, it would be a social and monetary act more than a personal one, and that any man she wed would be  _ understanding  _ about her leg.  That they would… couple in the darkness, that he would be a gentleman and not insist that she show herself to him.  That the feel of that heavy stocking on her leg when they touched would be of no moment because he would intuit that as a lady, she was already embarrassed enough by the marriage act.

Thomas would never allow it.  

No matter if he was marrying her for her fortune, he would take her completely.  When he chose he would have her by daylight or in a room blazing with candles, and he would strip her bare himself if she demurred and she knew that she would be unable to prevent it.  

The look he would give her then, be it disgust or pity, or a blankness that he would consider to be the kindest choice… 

The sight of her deformity beside his faultless self…

She could not marry him. 

 

Thomas left the Meadows, choosing to walk rather than flagging down a hack.  It was nearly dark out, the shortest days of the year approaching with the upcoming holidays, and he felt himself become almost invisible in the fading light and what looked to be a pea-soup fog rolling in from the river, making the roads even slicker and more dangerous than normal.

Perhaps, unseen in his father’s old suit of black, he would be struck by a cartage horse.  Or might slip and fall, striking his head on an iron step. Often, in past years, he had contemplated how easily death came, through almost never for the deserving.  

Unless it was aided...    

Thomas had always been too much of a coward to take his own life, but in the past he had taken some comfort in living in a place as dangerous as London, full of accidents and criminals.  As well as working in the mines, knowing that his terrible house could at any moment fall in upon him, trapping him in the clay that would inevitably pull him down, filling his lungs, stopping his mouth, stilling his heart.  As it had happened to those miners when he was a boy.

How fascinated he and Lucille had been by those poor men’s nightmarish deaths.  And their childish fancy of the victims being reborn as black moths! What was dead should stay still and quiet, and only a fool would wish otherwise.

Tonight, he stepped carefully, keeping from the edge of the road, placing each foot firmly.  Aware of those around him and their intents. 

He did not want to die. 

He wanted Alice.

It had not occurred to him until he had almost finished that ridiculous little proposal - that he had invented with the assistance of bad literature and maudlin theatre - that he wanted her to say yes.  

Not because Mrs. Meadows had given him an ultimatum.  After all, threatening to ruin him was tantamount to setting fire to an already burned down house.  What more could be done, really? No matter how imaginative the Meadows might be in their threats they would just be forcing him out of a life he already reviled.  He could rusticate in Cumbria, drinking the dregs of the rest of the family cellars until he went the rest of the way mad.

Perhaps Ticehurst would take him as a charity case and he could rave and gibber in the cell beside Lucille’s.  That would please her, she so hated that they were apart.

He wanted Alice to say yes.

His performance, his attempt to put the same space between them that he kept with all others, had been successful.  Alice, being herself, had not attempted to bridge the gap in her quiet certitude that he, like everyone else, had come to see her only as a prettily shaped, broken, pile of coin.  

When she had stood he had known he wanted her to say yes, standing, swaying with tiredness, leaning heavily enough upon her cane to make her hand turn white.  Her poor, talented hand that was already red from where he had held it too tightly to hide his own shaking. 

If he were her husband he would pick her up and carry her to their rooms, over any pink cheeked protest she might make.  He would undress her, wrapping her in a silken robe, and would insist that she rested, that she let him tend to her. 

If he were her husband he could see to all that she needed, taking the small and large cares from her so that she might dedicate herself to her genius.  

It would be a wonderful thing to help in some way to bring beauty into the world.  To let everyone see what Alice saw.

Thomas shook his head and laughed at the half-truths he told himself.  He wanted Alice to say yes because she was Alice and after years of having nothing for himself he wanted her.  

He took a clearing breath and stood not straighter, for he’d had perfect posture beaten into him as a child, but broader.  Fuller. He could make a future with her, far from England and coldness and the dark. He would make her happy, knowing, he thought with a half-smile, that Alice would not make _ that  _ easy.  She was the sort of woman who fought against her own happiness, feeling that somehow it would make her seem weak.

She could be weak with him, and would never regret it.  For once he would protect rather than be protected.

When he reached the building where he roomed, the streets were full, and he did not especially fear that someone had been walking close behind him for some blocks, as they had made no motions towards him.  But when that figure brushed past as Thomas patted at his coat pocket for his key, something in the touch of their shoulders made him shudder.

A smell of molder and cold trailed behind the silent figure, his head wrapped in a crimson scarf, who was briefly revealed in the yellow gaslight on the corner and then disappeared into the smoggy night.

 

Alice wore her favorite winter dress of navy wool trimmed in grey satin, and no jewelry save the lavalier beneath her bodice and waited for Thomas in the same drawing room, sitting in the same chair.  

There was tea this time.  It would give her something to do with her hands should the need arise, although the thought of drinking the hot liquid made her already sour stomach twist.  She had moved through the day with little conversation and had only barely made an explanation to her parents that she was still not entirely well today.

Refusing to marry Thomas would be simple enough.  The more she thought of it the more she knew it had been a fool’s dream to consider doing otherwise.  She was too proud and spoiled to only have the body of the man she wanted without the heart that should go with it.

But _ giving up _ Thomas… knowing that his own pride would never allow him to return to her studio, even if that should ever be possible, to know that she would never again glut herself on the sight of his beauty, share their secret truths, finish her work…

“Sir Thomas Sharpe,” Parks said, breaking into her thoughts.

Alice rose easily.  Her indolent day had left her leg well rested and nearly pain free.

Thomas wore one of his newer suits today, with especially crisp linen and a devastating neckcloth.  He looked better still than the day before, his eyes less tired. 

He bowed over her hand, not smiling.  “Alice, you look weary,” his voice was so soft.  He leaned forward ever so slightly to look at her more closely.  He was himself again. The self he seemed to be only with her when alone.  

It would make everything so much harder, but she had endured worse.

“Please,” she gestured for him to sit.  “Tea?”

“Thank you, but no.”

Damn.  She would have poured for herself but her stomach was still unsettled and it would be rude to take refreshment before a guest.

Best to act quickly, then.  

“I am a bit… I spent much of my night considering your very kind offer.  I have never been so flattered, and I am aware of the compliment you do in giving me such consideration, but I fear that I must respectfully decline.”

Thomas sat back, his head tilted and his eyes narrow.

“May I ask why?”

Alice refused to meet his now hard gaze, “There are a number of reasons.”  Suddenly she wanted to hurt him, to drive him away. He had hurt her quite enough to deserve some recompense.  “I think that most of them are perfectly obvious. It would be an insult to my parents for one thing, to connect their good name with your soiled one.”

He smiled at her then.  Not his charming smile, but the other one.  The one that cut. “Oh, I very much doubt that.  A title tends to cause dirt to just slide away I’ve noticed.  And your parents have been more than welcoming. Your mother was utterly delightful just now.  I might almost say she would favor the match.”

Something about that seemed to amuse him and again the cutting smile sliced into her self-esteem.  Would her mother really not care who she married if a ladyship came with the scandal? Her mother had never seemed to care so much about such things, unlike her father she came from money, but then...

“That would not be so if she knew what I know to be true about you,” she snapped at him.  He needed to leave! She needed to be alone. To lick her wounds and find that blank place within herself before tonight’s… whatever she was doing.  A ball. The theatre. Another pointless dinner party with the same dull people. Another waste of her time and her energy, another set of pointless obligations that could not be demurred from again.

There was no smile now, but rather a sneer, “And if she knew what I knew to be true of the two of us she and your father would have us in Gretna Green as fast as their money could carry us.”

“You would not!  You could not do such a thing to one who has been your friend!”  The pain that he would even threaten such a thing was like touching acid.

“My darling, you have only the slightest idea of what I am capable of.”

In a moment Thomas had crossed the space between them and was kneeling before her again, but not in the pose of a supplicant.  There was an amused coldness to him that she recognised from when she had visited his rooms and he had then been the one trying to drive her away.

Grabbing her chin, he pulled her face close to his, “I would be happy to give details about your person, to make myself look more of the cad than I already do, humiliate us both if that is what it takes to have you.”

Then he moved his hand to her throat, the pressure not threatening but implaccable, and pulled her mouth up to his.  She felt herself open beneath him, inviting him in, taking the long, seducing kiss, the teasing and drawing of his tongue, the edge of his teeth threatening her lip, the whole of it making her sink against him so he held her up.

“You are shaking.  I mean to have you, Alice.  Say yes.”

Before she could say anything he kissed her again, his hand now stroking her throat, calming her, his arm about her waist, pushing her against him, standing, lifting her so her toes brushed the tips of his polished black boots.  

“Say yes.  And we can be alone any time you wish.  I would banish the very servants and would wait on you hand and foot.”

He licked her lips and rubbed the gold chain of her necklace, that he alone knew she always wore.

“Say yes.  I can taste the yes in your pretty, wet mouth.”

Alice had never had anyone override her before.  

She hated it. 

She wanted him to continue.  To force her to do what she wanted, what she knew was the wrong thing.

Another kiss, and his hand sliding from her throat to muss her hair, to take her head and turn the softness of the kiss into something hard.  

“Say yes.  Make me warm, Alice, and let me make you happy.”

Now he was gasping too.  When had she begun to gasp, to pant?  Perhaps from the moment he knelt, from when he had first touched her.

Was there a color she could find that would match his voice?  Burgundy velvet painted over with a gilded brush. Mahogany mixed with bits of gleaming jet.  She could try and try again and never find its equal. 

“Yes.”


	9. Spes Vicit Mortis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Alice's engagement is announced.

As was tradition, Mrs. Meadows would be hosting a small dinner party for their closest - in London - friends, to announce the engagement.  

Normally, the next day Alice would send personal notes to their relatives and her personal friends, so they would be informed before anything was published in the correct newspapers, but since they would take so long to reach home her mother and Mrs. Grey helped her quickly address the notes and post them in record time beforehand.

Thomas would arrange the reading of the banns.  The Meadows were indifferently Presbyterian, Mrs. Meadows having converted from Episcopalianism on their marriage and all of them viewing church attendance as a social obligation.  As a family they generally believed that there was a God, but that spending much time dwelling on Him and His works was rather vulgar and it was really none of their business, in truth. 

In the week between Alice’s acceptance of him and the dinner party, Thomas was expected to keep his distance.  Since he could no longer be ‘employed’ he spent his time sending his own notes, these to his dance partners, explaining that their associations - which would always be a beautiful memory for him - were sadly at an end.

Adalia Carstairs sent a histrionic missive in return, threatening to commit dire harm to herself if he did not say it wasn’t so.  He sent no word back and was unsurprised to see no notice of her subsequent death in the Times.

The Ladies Belldale, Mansour, and Mrs. Harrington all sent him their best wishes and their compliments on his lovely bride to be.  Worldly and older, each no doubt already had a replacement partner in mind, as the season was upon them and it would be simply too boring without a friend to lighten their social loads.

Ella Bringhan was silent, and probably relieved.  The poor woman was clearly sick with love for her politely cruel husband and had only taken up with Thomas in the hopes of gathering his admiration for her daring.  Alas, Roger Bringhan was incapable of noticing anything but himself, his tailor, and whichever Cockney opera dancer had stricken his fancy for above five minutes. 

Thomas had often thought that Bringhan would do very well taking up the life of a Cyprian if his poor wife’s family money ever failed.

Winnie Ashburn sent a chatty letter detailing her dull and languishing life in the country, only mentioning his note in her postscript where she quite insisted that she be allowed to throw their first fete as a married couple in town.  And that they must name a child after her - Winifred or Winston, she cared not which.

In addition, he sent letters to Douglass, the manager of the pit in Cumbria, and Reynolds, the caretaker for the house and grounds that he would not be visiting after the New Year as scheduled.  It would probably be April before they saw him, after his wedding trip. 

Taking his place would be sending the new equipment that had already been ordered, as well as additional funds to buy what supplies their best judgement told them were needed and to give each man a reasonable Christmas bonus in their pay envelope and to drink the good health of his new bride.

After he pulled another sheet of stationary, intent on sending extra instructions to Reynolds to take some of the available cash to work on making the house liveable and to hire a housekeeper and a maid of all work.  

In anticipation of taking Alice there.  Perhaps next summer.

He sat with the nib touching the thick, pristine paper, unable to make his hand move, imagining Alice in Allerdale Hall.  Her ash brown hair gleaming dully as the weak Northern sun came through the broken roof of the entrance hall, her cane catching in the broken floorboards as the red earth sucked at her feet, footprints stained red as she made her way from room to room, observing the grotesquery of the old ruin, the decayed hopes and ugly dreams of generations of Sharpes as she moved from chamber to chamber.

She would want to see them all.

The Master bedroom, with his parent’s grand, cold bed and the breathing sound echoing down the chimney and moaning out of the mouth of the fireplace.  How it had terrified him as a child. Lucille had told him that it was the voice of all their ancestors, trying to share secrets with them, but they did not know the language of the dead.  

They had rarely been called to the room, the only time he had been called to that horrible place was when his mother was too ill to leave her fainting couch and she wished to observe them.  Not speaking, but her gaze boring through them both like an auger, as if trying to find the source of the infection, the _ wrongness _ that had taken root in her get.

The drawing room, which was one of the only rooms that had few specific nightmares attached to it.  His mother played there, which meant that he and Lucille knew they were safe for as long as the music soared and eddied through the house, as their father spent as little time home as he could, and preferred to beat his wife rather than dirty his hands on his weak, pretty-faced son and unnatural daughter when he was at home.  

It was in the dining room that Sir James liked enjoying wines that their coffers could no longer afford and persecuting his children. 

The kitchens, where he had at least one or two pleasant memories of Teresa sneaking the two of them to sit by the stove, keeping warm whilst she heated milk for their possets.

After that Alice would find her way to the iron cage of the elevator, locking herself in so she might reach the upper rooms.

She would want to see the nursery.  Surely. 

Even if he could tolerate the idea of Alice within the Allerdale’s poisonous walls he knew it would drive him a little mad to see her in the nursery, especially.  Her finely tuned artist’s eye would surely see his corrupt past embedded there. Even if she were incapable of understanding what wrongs had been done there she would surely know something greatly wrong had been committed there, and would see the corresponding wrong within him.  

God help his sanity if he were to see her bathing in his mother’s huge old tub, her stick propped against the porcelain, should she need it.

Just like mother’s had been when Lucille had hacked her to pieces and then took his hand and led him away to wait in the nursery until they were found…

When he looked down the pressure of his hand had split the nib of his pen and the ink had turned most of the creamy page black, staining the rosewood table beneath.

 

The theatre was its usual hot, crowded press, filled with the scent of talcum shoulders, Bay Rum, heavy cigar smoke that dragged through the humid air created by too many bodies, gentian and lily perfumes, and less polite odors that all pretended to be above experiencing even as their noses twitched.  

As was her wont, Alice waited until almost everyone had returned to their seats as the interval ended.  Her family’s private box meant she could enter late without interrupting the actors - though this seemed to matter little to most of the rest of the audience.  And she could move at her own pace without being jostled or feeling that she was interfering with the free motion of the crowd about her.

Her parents, used to her ways, had gone ahead and so she was alone, save for the dozen or so theatre goers around her, when William Preston’s eldest brother accosted her.

He had been drinking, which was no surprise.  But the slight sway of his stance was. Most of the gentlemen of his class prided themselves on their ability to drink heroically and show little effect beyond a slight increase in loquaciousness.  The Earl of Borwith’s heir, Robert, was normally the picture of restrained good manners and control. Leaving the outrage to his famously handsome and daring middle brother, Alexander, who pursued bad women and cards on the continent, and the eccentricity to William, who was bizarrely interested in earning his own living.

Alice had always found him rather disagreeable.  Although he was as golden and handsome as his siblings, it was clear that he considered marrying into the trade beneath his family while at the same time he was desperate for William to wed and bed her so that they might start spending her money.  The conflict had left him with a constant air of dyspepsia and oiliness. 

“Miss Meadows,” he said, blocking her way.  There was a hiss to his voice that along with the sway put her in mind of a cobra that she had seen in Regent’s Zoo in an exhibition of animals from India.  “How charming you look tonight. But then, an expectant bride should have a certain glow about her. Especially one who is fortunate enough to be the intended of a man who is such an expert in making ladies glow.  So very,  _ very _ many ladies.”

He loomed over her, a grin of disgust on his face as he whispered, too close and dampening her with brandy sweetened breath, “And some gentleman in his long past youth, or so those legends from Eton and Oxford go.”  He lightly toyed with a curl that draped onto her shoulder, the touch of his fingertips feeling like the skin of a toad. 

Her mind whirled with confusion.  What could he mean by “some gentlemen”?

“I should have encouraged sweet William to be more … direct with you.  He’s such a child still, in so many ways. I should have recognised that a woman of your ilk would be comfortable with the crudities of life than with the refined, boyish sort of courting my baby brother might offer.  Even if you have the appearance of a lady, we both know better.”

For a moment Alice was stunned.  

Then, for want of a witty rejoinder, she stood as tall as she might, “You’ll excuse me, Lord Robert, but my parents are awaiting me.  I am quite willing to allow you to speak ill of me, as I know you are disappointed in your hopes for your brother, but you will not denigrate my husband to be in my presence.”

“So prim seeming, aren’t you, Alice?” he drew out her name.  “They say that cripples often have unnatural appetites brought on by too much indolence and the deformity of their bodies affecting the wholesomeness of their thoughts.  No doubt what you see in that catamite. Perhap I should ha-”

“Robert!”  William’s voice, coming from behind Alice, was low and tense.

Lord Robert backed off only half a step, but kept his red-shot gaze upon Alice. “William.  I was just-”

Gently taking Alice’s arm, so he might move around her, William placed himself between her and his brother, “I know what you were just.  Apologize and go home. Now.”

“Look here, you little simp, I will not be spoken to that way by you or any other man.”

William took a step towards him, grasping his cravat and pulling him close so he might not shout, “And I will not tolerate you speaking as you have to Miss Meadows, but I will wait until you are sober before I thrash you for it!  And you know I can.”

With a quick lift of his arms he shoved his brother backwards where he stumbled over his own feet and landed with what appeared to be a painful thud on the thick, footworn carpeting.  Red faced and humiliated, the future Earl rose, straightening his jacket and left without a word.

After watching his brother’s departure, William turned back to Alice, carefully taking her hand and bowing over it.  “I apologize for my brother, as he is clearly incapable of civility this evening. And for my own violent action. May I see you to your seat?  It will most likely help dispel rumours of my being unjustly treated by you.”

He looked at her, his earnest blue eyes soft and a little sad.

Suddenly, Alice saw the truth.  That for as much as the Preston’s fortunes might have benefitted from her wealth, money was not the only reason that he had paid court to her.

“Oh, William.  I had no idea that-”

“I understand.  I want your happiness above all, Alice.  Please know that. If you should ever need a friend I am always that to you,” he said, laying her hand over his arm and turning them towards her parent’s box.

Behind them, unseen and silent, a black suited figure left the darkened doorway leading to another private box, moving with purpose towards the exit.

 

The dinner that Mrs. Meadows had hosted in Thomas’s honor, to formally announce his engagement to her daughter, had been a smallish affair by the Meadow’s entertainment standard.  

Only twenty guests graced the table, with hothouse roses and lilies - both of which he knew Alice scorned - decorating the room.  Service was, of course, à la Russe, with a slightly less formal eight courses as one might have with family rather than the expected ten, and the expected excellent wines and windy toasts.

Thomas was relieved that as the groom to be he was expected only to thank the Meadows and offer some self-deprecating platitudes about hoping he might prove worthy of their trusting the happiness of their daughter to him.  He was additionally grateful that he could speak with real sincerity in doing so, and even those sitting at table who knew his unsavory past seemed to recognise it and offer likewise sincere ‘hear hear’s.’

For the duration of the meal Alice was her usual, social self - perfect, self-contained, and gracious.  Her gown was darker than was typical, a rich rust silk with velvet undersleeves like something from a Medieval portrait, her hair gathered ruthlessly back so her fine jaw was clear and not a strand dared come loose.  They had no time alone, and when he raised his glass to her and, quite innocently, kissed her cheek when her father gave his toast in their honor, she gave him a look that he could not parse. 

Her skin was scented with neroli and talc and he would that he could have found a way to have a moment with her to see what the matter was.  To make the strange feeling in his chest ease. 

To see that she did not wish to recant the yes that he had wrung from her so unfairly, using his erotic knowledge to overwhelm her and steal away with an affirmation that she had not wanted to give him.

That night he worked on the gift he hoped to give her some time before the wedding.  He had drunk sparingly of Mr. Meadow’s excellent vintages and the whiskey offered afterwards as well.  He had not indulged himself in either opium or cheap brandy in the days since Mrs. Meadows had met him on Rotten Row.  

The first few days had been unpleasant, with a great deal of shaking and abnormal cold on his part.  Wrapped in an ancient shawl beside his fire, Thomas had lost yet more weight as the poison ate its way out of his body.  When he had slept there had been nightmares. When one, unremembered but pressing on him like the sucking clay beneath Allerdale Hall, caused him to wake screaming for his sister to help him he nearly went back to the pipe.

Now, for the first time in more years than he cared to recall, not only were his hands steady, but so were his thoughts.

There was a knock on his door.  He wondered if it was the scholar from upstairs.  He often couldn’t afford fuel for his fire and would wake so cold he would beg to warm himself at Thomas’s until his hands unstiffened.  It was bitter even for December and the damp that rose along the walls of the Clemmons woman’s establishment, practically moldering before his eyes, made it seem even worse.

His eyes were growing tired at any rate, he could use a distraction, he thought, covering his work with a cloth and stretching, counting five neat pops along his spinal column.  Not bothering with his jacket, he did roll his sleeves down and was affixing the studs at his cuffs as he opened the door.

“Andrews, I certainly hope you aren’t expecting a hot drink,” he said.

Alice seemed strangely small.  

He realized that her shoulders were slumped forward and she was shivering, the cheap, maid-servant’s cloak that covered her dinner gown was soaked.  At some point an icy mess of rain had begun to fall on the city, leaving the night sky a dirty brown. She pushed back the hood of the cloak and gave him a remorseful smile.  “I should not have walked the last few blocks, but I did not wish to have the cab see me here, so I had him stop near the Suttons. They are having a gathering.”

Thomas was horrified.  A scrolling list of torments appeared before him.  That Alice should be out in such weather, walking the five blocks in the dark from the Suttons on the slick and frozen streets, her stick clattering beside her as her boots slid along the uneven banquettes of this part of the city.  That any manner of creature might have stumbled up her alone in the night. Any criminal, any madman. Anyone. That she might be seen to be here, though that was less a worry as their engagement  _ had _ been announced.  It would not do her reputation much good, but the harm at this point would be mitigated.

“You should not have-,” with a huff of exasperation he ushered her into his rooms.  “Did anyone other than Mrs. Clemmons see you?”

“Not even her.  The door was open.  I turned the latch when after I came in.  It seems most unsafe.”

“Unbelievable,” he said.  Now he had to be concerned for both Alice’s well being on the street and his own here.

Once he had her cloak off - she had ‘borrowed it’ from a maid with romantic ideas who had been pleased to be part of her intrigue and had even been the one to fetch the hansom for her - and her feet near his fire, Thomas poured her a glass of sherry.  It was the only decent thing he had to offer and as he hated the stuff it offered him no temptation.

Little enough temptation, at any rate, even though the rage he felt at Alice made him want to down a bottle of rotgut and to hell with the consequences.

She took a small sip, and as he opened his mouth to rail at her, she as ever took the wind from his sails.  

“Thomas, when you marry me, will it be a hardship for you to do without your other dance partners?”

Before he could begin to answer she continued, “I know you have had a life of some … varied experience, and that for all of my protestations of worldliness I am, as you said yourself, just a girl who has lived a jewel box life.  Protected and surrounded by all that glitters. I fear that you will rather abruptly find me dull company. I do not actually care for social occasions and once we are married it will be easier for me to avoid many of them which I greatly look forward to.  I find chat often beyond me though I can play at caring about the weather and fashion and train tables being accurate or not if I must do so. And clearly I cannot dance.” 

With a look to her cane, propped against the side table she smiled again.

She dropped her gaze to the glass of sticky liquor, “Nor can I dance.  As you well know. And I am aware that you have had a number of elegant partners.  Varied partners. Female and male partners and I know that some men prefer-,” she stopped herself.  “Thomas, do you prefer the company of men?”

Thomas felt that he should be outraged that somehow that piece of his past had found its way to his fiancee.  Strangely he wasn’t. It may have been because it came as a relief to have her know it, to have one less secret from her, even if it was one that their hypocritical society considered amongst the worst.

Because most of them could not imagine how significantly worse a secret could be than two men finding comfort and pleasure in each other’s bodies.

Alice seemed concerned rather than outraged.  Confused rather than disgusted. 

He pulled an ottoman over and sat so their knees nearly touched.  Setting aside her glass, he took her cold, satin gloved hands in his.

“It has been longer than I can remember since I have preferred anyone’s company.  I do not care for people so very much, for all that I do enjoy company and chatting and dancing.  Upon occasion. You are the only person I have perhaps ever known whose company I prefer.”

She cocked her head.  “To whom?” 

Lucille.  He gave himself leave to think it even if he could not say it.  Alice’s presence in his life dispelled much of the fear that had formed when he considered the two of them, their tainted blood, and all of their crimes.  For as much as he dreaded and wished to never again see his beautiful, mad sister, he had been lonely in the years without her. 

“To everyone.”  He touched her cheek, “You may not understand this but I am not marrying you for your money.  I am marrying you for yourself.”

“I find that impossible to believe.”

“Then I must prove myself to be honest.”  In this situation, he thought.

He kissed her.  He kissed her softly, as a better man might kiss the girl he fancied and was courting properly.  His lips touched hers with the reverence of a priest before the altar. Then more firmly, like a man with his wife.  Taking comfort in her sweetness after a taxing day, knowing that she needed comfort from him as well. His mouth opened and so did hers, and his tongue gave her its shy attentions.

He kissed her like a lover, now wild for his mistress.  Alice’s body softened into his, her sigh licked his skin, and he lifted her from the seat to place her carefully on his lap and then stood with her in his arms.  She clutched at him as if afraid.

Then he realized she most likely did fear falling.  What for anyone else would be embarrassing or bruising for Alice could be damaging and agonizing.

“I have you sweetheart, I won’t let you go,” he promised.  “Ever. I will never let you go, Alice. I cannot. I mean to take you to my bed now, and once I do, know that even if you make a jilt of me, if you run, use all of your father’s wealth to hide I will hunt you to the end of the earth.”

Thomas didn’t plan those words, but they came to him anyway.  He was tired of being alone and he knew that only this girl would keep him from the loneliness that had been eating him alive since he had signed the papers at Ticehurst when he was seventeen and walked away without looking back as Lucille begged and screamed that he promised they would never be apart.

Until she had fallen suddenly and utterly silent.

With great solemnity Alice said, “Thomas, you know I cannot run.”

The startled laugh that came from him felt like a lightning strike setting fire to his past and burning it to the ground.

 

His bed was huge.  He must have brought it from elsewhere, the same place that the better, if older furnishings that were in his rooms were from.  His home in the north, no doubt.

Laying her carefully upon it, Thomas sat with her legs over his lap and began to unlace her boots.  “No one but I has ever slept here,” he promised. “And I not so very often,” he added ruefully.

Her proper boot came off easily, and he was terribly careful with the other.  “Let me know if I hurt you.” She nodded, and when he removed that thick soled monstrosity he then proceeded to rub her foot through the thick stocking.  Alice groaned. It felt heavenly. 

“I am going to remove your brace now,” he said.  

She could feel her mouth grow tense, but nodded.  “Please, please leave on the stocking? I wear it so often I terribly chilled when it is removed,” she lied.  

With narrowed eyes he considered her and then nodded, “Very well, this time as my rooms are not as warm as I would like for you.  But never again.”

She nodded back, pushing the terror of that future unveiling from her mind as she enjoyed the evergreen bliss of feeling the straps open and her leg lift free.  She took the thing from him and tossed it across the room where it landed with a clatter. “It is nearly as indestructible as I am broken. My father had it made from Carnegie steel.”

“You are not broken,” he said, not adding more but sounding certain.  With deft, experienced fingers he removed the garter from her whole leg and then the stocking, rolling it down carefully, using the action to touch her from thigh to toe.  

Each finger left a trail of fire and ease, as if what burned also comforted.

His gaze upon her leg, upon her body was intent.  He stared at her like she looked at her work when it was in progress, focused and blind to all else.  It was heady and terrifying. 

“Roll over,” he told her, his voice rough and deep.  Her dress was very modern, with no laces and only a few buttons at the nape of her neck.  When he undid her, he kissed the knobs of her spine with open mouthed kisses that made her arch, the pain her leg from the motion be damned.  “Oh, Alice,” he breathed against her, sliding the silk down her hips, then off of her. 

With two tugs he had loosened her petticoats and they were gone as well.

And then her stays.  Those he unlaced all of the way and slid out from under her, intuiting that the snugness of the corset would make it too hard to remove any other way without causing her pain.

Her pantelets.

When they came down, with a jolt of surprise she felt him kiss her behind!  Why that should be so strange considering where else on her person his mouth had been she did not know, but it was strange.  He laughed against her skin, “Just a buss, Alice, nothing too shocking tonight.”

What could be more shocking?

Now she rolled back on her own, so that she might sit up, putting her arms into the air so he could remove her chemise.  Instead he stopped and looked at her.

“How pretty you are.  I can just see your lovely nipples through that bit of silk,” and then he was straddling her, sucking on her breasts through the silk, the flat of his tongue laving and his teeth nipping enough to make her hips thrust up, trying to meet him, again the pain being nothing compared to the deep and aching need.

“Please,” she whispered. 

“Yes, sweetheart,” he removed the garment, and then took off his own vest, undoing the studs on his shirt so it hung open, so that he could press his chest to her and they could kiss again with ever greater abandon.

“Should you not also be undressed?”  Her voice was a gasp, as his hand stroked between her legs, and then began to rub that most sensitive bit of flesh with two fingers covered in the dew he had gathered from her.

“Whenever I am naked you seem only to think of your beautiful work,” his rubbing grew lighter, doing the reverse of what she wanted.  Another kiss and then, “Are you in need?” He spoke close to her ear, his tongue licking out to trace the whorls there.

It made her jump.  How strange such a thing should be so exciting?  Should make her feel even more intensely than where he touched her sex?

“Yes,” she begged, if one word could be begging.  She wanted to beg him. She wanted to be able to kneel and supplicate herself to him, if only he would give her what she needed, which he knew and she was only beginning to understand.  “Oh, yes, please.”

“You are adorable like this, my Alice.  Open and full of wanting,” his hand left her and she made a sad noise, “Shhhh, I have you.”  She opened her eyes. His splendid face hung above her, his eyes intent, his thin lips frowning.  He had loosed himself and she could feel his phallus against her side, moving of its own accord, painting moisture from its tip along the outside of her thigh.

With care and slowness he found his way between her legs, he pushed her bad leg wide and then wider, until he saw the wince on her face.  “Just a little pain,” he said, and then kissed her, while thrusting himself into her.

It was more than a little pain.  It was piercing and burning and because it came from within any motion made it worse.

“Have I hurt you?”  Thomas lifted himself on ridged arms so most of his weight was off of her, so they were joined only by his flesh within hers, by the touch of hip to hip.

Alice was used to far more than just a little pain.  

“Nothing that I cannot welcome,” she said, and with a sigh of gratification, Thomas began to move, slowly, in minute increments, until sweat rolled down his torso onto hers, until Alice felt the growth of the pain being joined by a coinciding growth of pleasure, one that he had gifted her with before.

She found herself loving the scratching of his wool trousers on her delicate skin and the way the linen of his shirt stroked her breasts.

His face was transported above her, in darkness and in light, as he moved in and out of the shadow from the china lamp beside his bed.  Even when he had used her to give himself release in her studio on that strange day, he had only looked as if he was attempting to be done with an unpleasant task.  But now, oh now he looked...

His expression!  That she should be the cause of such fervent rapture!  

It was that transcendent beauty that she had seen in a certain fall of sunlight, or the way the green of a leaf would look against a greying, rainy sky, or a perfect partnering between dancers during the waltz.  

“Oh, Thomas,” she whispered, touching his face.

His eyes opened, blue and for a moment unseeing.  Then he saw her, locking their gaze together, and his culmination was a wrenching thing that seemed to leave him both utterly empty and completely filled.

 

They were amongst the only Londoners who slept through the sounds of newsies, calling out with a special edition that had been released with the dawn.  

A gruesome murder at the home of an Earl was news even in the earliest hours of the day. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	10. Vincit Rationem Amentia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new morning.

It was still dark, the dawn’s twilight having not yet begun when Thomas quietly woke.

For the first time in memory he woke without a start, without his heart racing, without his mouth filled with bile, or needing to thrust a fist against his mouth to silence a cry.  A peaceful, warm waking as rare as it was welcome.

He heard the soft, even breathing beside him…

Alice.

Alice in his bed, wearing one of his old, soft shirts that covered her almost to the knee, having shoved the thin woolen blanket partially off as their bodies had warmed the bed.

_ His _ Alice, who had come to him alone in the darkness and the cold to reassure herself that his desire for her was genuine and gone to his bed with him as easily as another woman would accept a passed plate of cakes or a fresh cup of tea.  Alice, guiltless and so sweet, and hopefully well pleasured, though in his own distraction, overcome with both fervent bodily need and a desire to possess, to have an inarguable hold on her, Thomas was not entirely certain that it had been so.

He rolled onto his side and watched her breathe, her face showing only faintly in the light from his not terribly clean window.  She lay on her back with her head turned slightly towards him. He became aware smell of her body, of his body, of the act they had committed and the faint sourness of her breath and the cheap sherry he had given her.  

Normally all of those odors - his spunk, her cunt, even a coppery trace of blood, though Alice had cleaned herself the night before, shyly taking the damp cloth from him - disgusted him, leaving him limp and in need of escape.  Weakly nauseated and trapped by his own memories and squeamishness.

This morning they made him ravenous.  Thomas was hard to the point of pain and almost horrified to find himself wanting to dip his fingers between her legs and paint his body in their shared scent so that he might not feel alone even after she had gone.

He needed to wake her, to find a way to return her home before the anticipation of their vows became idle, post-dinner gossip in all of the best houses.  “Alice…” he whispered.

She stirred slightly, moving closer to him.  

As if drawn, he moved closer to her in kind, whilst repeating, “Alice.”  

Again, they each moved.  His arm pulled her close, she settled her face in the crook of his neck, mumbling softly, “Thomas?”  There was no surprise or shock as he thought there might be, rather she nuzzled against his skin.

He slid his hand beneath the thin linen of the old shirt she wore, and gently stroked the thigh of her attenuated leg through the thick stocking. He found a knot and used his thumb to ease it.  Alice made a sound that was neither a moan nor a sigh, but rather both. When she spoke, her voice slightly husky with sleep and made it almost impossible for him to not roll her onto her back and take her like an animal.

“I promise to allow you to … some day I will show you my deformity but please, I would ask you to wait until -”

“I want all of you Alice.  I  _ will _ have all of you.  But if you need further time to … steel yourself for such a revelation then I will content myself for a while with the rest of you.”

He could actually feel her turn pink, her skin growing almost hot.

“Kiss me, Thomas,” she sounded dreamy and he felt his cock judder against the bare skin of her undamaged limb.

Her mouth was heavenly, her kissing still slightly awkward with her lack of experience, but she was beginning to know what she preferred just as he knew, with the intuitive skills gathered in his filthy past.

It was his past, Thomas realized.  Everything that he had loathed was behind him, or could be, if he would but allow it to fall away.  He had a future.

Almost everything, he corrected himself.  There was still Allerdale to be dealt with.  It would be unsafe to leave it to molder, desire it though he might.  And the mine, as well, must be considered. He could not simply allow it to close.  Failing or not, it was still one of the largest sources of employment in that part of Cumbria and the families of the miners needed to be considered.  There was still Lucille… 

He felt himself wane as the thought of his dark, cold, beautiful sibling intruded into this moment with his delicate, awkward, lucent bride.  

“Is there something the matter?  Have I done something wrong?” Alice asked, her voice worried.

He had pulled away from her.  He could tell her the truth of him.  Thomas looked at her, the uncertainty in her usually clear and too seeing gaze.  But now she could not be more blind. He should tell her the truth. She deserved to know what manner of creature she had agreed to joining the shackles. 

Rather, he rolled her onto her back, leaning above her, one hand loosely draped around her sweet throat, “I am going to touch you.  Not as I have before, but to the same ends. If I should hurt you, afflict you, in ways that you do not derive pleasure from only say the word and I shall stop.” 

Lowering his hand to the neck of the old shirt, with one loud keening of the fabric he ripped it, leaving her bare to him.  

Alice jumped and then gave a startled laugh, her mouth open in a wide smile, her eyes meeting his.  His clear need pleased her and she took his face in her hands, pulling herself up to him into another kiss as he sharply pinched one of her already peaked nipples.  Her fingers convulsed, digging into his hair, and he again was as hard as he had ever been. 

Her second nipple he treated even more roughly, twisting slightly.

Insensible, Alice fell back against the pillows and he followed her down, biting her lips hard enough for her to feel but not so much to leave her obviously ravished.  He offered the same considerations and care along her neck, to her shoulders, leaving marks that he knew would fade quickly, anticipating the day to come when he need offer no such considerations.

By the time he reached the curls between her legs she was wet and her hips were rising and falling as if to lure him closer.  He noted, with the part of his thoughts that were still rational and eager to observe, to note all elements of Alice, that her leg seemed to offer less discomfort and hindrance to her after a night of even attenuated rest.

No longer was he rough.  This most tender place of her’s, that she had given him alone the freedom of, was still recovering from the night before, so he was gentle.  With a practiced hand and an eye to the subtle and blatant signals of her pleasure he massaged where before he had used. Easing and soothing, exciting and stirring, not touching any of the most well known places of eroticism, but finding that which was particular to Alice. 

He tangled her unimpaired leg to keep her from moving enough to speed her conclusion and used to his mouth to lovingly mistreat her pretty, sore breasts while continuing his more kindly explorations of her now hungry and blazingly hot cunt.  When he finally entered her it was in a smooth, slow slide, his thumb rubbing her pearl in firm, merciless circles.

She panted and pled until he stopped her mouth with his, her hands scrambling on his back, on his shoulders, scratching the perspiring skin and he hoped she drew blood.  Signing him as much as she might sign the bottom corner of one of her paintings.

“Take me in hand,” he ordered.

It took her a moment to understand what he wanted, then her hand fumbled between them and wrapped itself shakily around his cock, squeezing once almost hard enough to harm him, to make him come without warning, and then, remembering the first lesson he had given her, began to move.  Finding a rhythm that matched that which he had decided upon for her.

“Thomas...” her voice was low, faint, “I feel, I feel …I cannot…”

He knew.

He drew out and then twisted back within her with two fingers that he crossed like a liar would, firmer than before but still not rough.  He crooked those fingers and her center convulsed around him, beating like a frightened heart. “Now, sweetheart, come for me now. I feel you squeezing my fingers, you love them in you, do you not?”

Insensible with need, she moaned, “I love you...”

Wild terror and constrained, cramped hope tore through him, he stopped all and stared at her, “You should not say such things if they are not true.  At moments like this it is not uncommon for a woman, for anyone-”

He was blathering.

“I do love you, Thomas.  I have since the day you said I might be your comrade and you first called me Alice.  I had always wished to have a confederate in this life.” Her voice was unadorned and honest.

“Alice,” he breathed.  

Then, unable to match her bravery, he instead worked to bring her to her culmination, offering skill in place of sincerity.  When she opened and then closed about him, jerking helplessly, fists wrapped in the sheets, beating against his back, he hungrily swallowed her whimpers.  Spending hotly over her clutching hand.

Later, before the sun could rise the rest of the way and betray them, he helped her dress in one of his suits, having to close her brace about the outside of the trousers and then cover her entirely with his greatcoat to hide it.  She giggled in a girlish way, what Thomas thought would be an un-Alice like way, when he used some of the industrial clips from his work-table to pin up her hair beneath his homburg. 

There was so much more he must learn about her…

The frost had leant an air of fairyland to even his shabby street and he might have shivered without the coat as he flagged a hansom cab for them, but he was almost too warm.

If the driver thought it strange that a man should carry another man down the icy stairs of the boarding house he did not comment.  The neighborhood was notorious for any number of reasons.

When they arrived at Alice’s parent’s residence he escorted her to the door.  “Never come to my rooms at night again, Miss Meadows,” he said sternly. “If you should need me at any moment, day or night, send word and I will come to you.”

They were leaned close, they both wanted to kiss, but the city had begun to stir as had the house, and Alice’s father opened the door, a look of relief on his face, “Your mother was right.  She generally is, but my male vanity insists on challenging her now and then,” he said to his daughter with a frown. “I suppose it is fortunate that I didn’t follow my inclinations to call the police.  Sir Thomas,” he nodded curtly, “I know that the old aristocracy have a different morality than we mere merchants, and that my family has earned some repute as being eccentrics or maybe as simply being mad, but this is the last midnight tryst you two will share until AFTER the wedding.”

He stepped back to let his daughter enter, and then stopped her, looking her up and down with a considering frown, “Trousers...” he mused, arms crossed, tapping his lips with a stubby forefinger, “they quite suit you, child.  Someday, some clever fellow is going to make a damned fortune selling those things to ladies. Shan’t be me, but someone.”

“It is always business with you, papa,” she kissed her father on the cheek as she passed him, all the while holding Thomas’s hand until, with a final squeeze, she let it go, disappearing into the vast house.

“Never again,” was all Mr. Meadows said as a farewell to his soon to be son-in-law.

 

Alice worried the lace on the edge of her veil until she feared it would tear.  Or stain from the perspiration on her fingers. Her normally cool, steady hands were shaking, damp, and terribly hot.

All of her body was hot, despite the cold wind, thick, almost solid with snow, that roiled outside of the house and rattled the windows within their panes.  A wooden sound like someone was desperately knocking, desperately trying to get in from the storm.

From where she sat on a window seat on the landing between the elegantly curved double-staircases, her gown spread so it would not wrinkle, her veil not yet over her face, Alice could actually see how the air eddied and gusted, so heavily did the snow lay upon it.

Very few of the guests had arrived, due to the storm, which was not a bother to Alice.  Indeed, she would have been very happy to have no one attend beyond her parents, and had trimmed the list as much as had been allowed, taking it to the point of insulting some of their London acquaintances, but not quite.  

Those who had braved the storm were those who lived closest - the Dabneys and Mr. Russell, those who had travelled farthest - Winnie Ashburn and her two children, who had left the country before the weather had turned and would probably be stranded in the city for a few extra days, and the most wretched - Bradley Huntington and his poor wife, who had been dragged from a sick bed to attend because her husband needed Alice’s father to purchase a consignment of Japanese silk that he had over-invested in and had to sell quickly, even if at a loss.

Japanese silk was not the thing this year in London. Or on the continent. Or even in Japan, it seemed.  But if Oscar Meadows should buy from Huntington, then next year every woman of fashion in America would be clamoring for their gowns to be made from nothing else.

The minister had arrived, covered in snow, his hat nearly white, but jovial and happy to take a brandy by the fire, conversing with Mrs. Huntington.  Mrs. Meadows had taken one look at the poor woman’s red nose and eyes and hustled her over to the hearth, calling for a hot lemonade with whiskey, all while scowling at Mr. Huntington, who was quite oblivious to his wife’s health or Mrs. Meadows irritation.

Mr. Meadows however was not oblivious and Alice hazarded a guess that the upper echelon ladies of the U.S.A. would  _ not _ be favoring Japanese silk in the near future.

Alice’s gown was made of ivory slipper satin, with full, rather old fashioned skirts that were held away from her legs by an equally old fashioned crinoline, to keep anything from tangling her step, so she might walk down the stairs and then the aisle aided only by her father’s arm and not her stick.  One of her feet was in a delicate dancing shoe, made of the same fabric, prettily decorated with actual gold rosettes and silver stitching.

The other was not.

Thomas had not arrived.

Afraid of destroying her veil, she reached under her lace covered decolletage, finding her lavalier that she wound around her fingers tightly enough to cut off the blood flow and feel like the chain could slice through her kid gloves. 

Because of superstition and custom she had not seen him in the days leading to the wedding.  Indeed, they had not even spoken privately, other than through the post, since the morning after he had taken her virtue.  

Alice gave a scornful laugh at that thought.  What was so virtuous in her before? In her naivety? In her ignorance?  True virtue must be the product of knowledge or it was simply childish inexperience and not an active kind of goodness.  

She smiled to herself.  If denying herself that which Thomas had offered her - the pleasure, certainly, but the intimacy even more - was what it took to be a good woman, then Alice would gladly live an unrepentant sinner and take matters up with St. Peter in the afterlife.  Beside which, she knew herself to be more than half-pagan at heart hoped to be bound for Elysium when the time came. 

Another painting occurred to her, Thomas as Hermes, clad in little more than a strip of linen and winged sandals, laced tightly up his long calves, his mischievous blue eyes peering from beneath a shag of thick curls.  

Perhaps one should finish at least one painting before planning the next five, she chastised herself tartly.  

The sound of the windows grew louder.  It was not the windows, but pounding on the door.  Her groom had arrived.

Bad luck or no, Alice stood and walked uneasily the few steps to where she could see the entrance.  Parks was assisting Thomas with taking off the huge, old greatcoat that he wore only in the worst weather.  Freed, he turned, taking off his John Bull topper and his eyes were drawn up to her. 

“About time, Sharpe,” he father said, extending a hand for a hearty shake, slapping the younger man on the shoulder.

“Apologies, sir.  I had to walk half way before I found a cab.”

Every time she saw him his beauty struck her anew.  The clean line of his jaw, perfectly suited to be kissed and nuzzled.  The aristocratic nose, slightly large, matching that largeness of his hands, his feet, his broad shoulders, those more traditionally masculine features complimenting more androgynous length of his lashes, the cut of his cheekbones, the carelessness of his curly hair, the ambiguity of his blue eyes - often cruel, often sad.

Always, when he saw her, knowing.

They stood staring at each other.

Remembering.

Shaking herself free of the revere before her knees grew weak, she looked at the clock and back at him, eyebrow raised.

He gave a helpless laugh, spreading his hands, “I-”

Winnie bustled out of the drawing room, her ample loveliness barely contained by the new style royal blue velvet gown she wore.  It was a bit much for a small, at home wedding, but was very, very much Winnie. “Thomas!” she admonished, “It’s bad luck for you to see your bride before the wedding.  Now shut your eyes and let me lead you away.” She turned and smiled, “Oh, Alice, you look wonderful. Too good for him.”

“I quite agree,” Thomas said.

Alice made fists.  It was not true. How could he not know that?

With a last flick of his eyes to her, Thomas bowed to Winnie and with a loose gesture passed his hand over his eyes, shutting them, “Lead on, oh faithful scout.”

Mr. Meadows ascended the stairs, “That boy is in love with you.  Your mother was right about that, too. I'll never hear the end of it.”

No, Alice thought, no he wasn't.  Not yet. Something dark still filled too much of his heart for love, but he did care.  Very much. And she had nothing but faith to believe that she loved him enough for the two of them.  Enough that one day he would be light enough to love her, too.

“Shall we?”  Her father, his homely, round face solemn but his eyes pleased, offered her his arm and they, carefully, descended together.

 

The ceremony in the vast library was intimate, in a bower made of hot house flowers, surrounded by a small but gorgeously dressed ensemble.  

The bride glowed.  

Of course she did, the crippled slut.  Who would not glow under the regard of such a groom?

A groom who was like a young god in his splendor.

Lucille saw it all from the window.

Thomas.

Oh, Thomas.

Soon they would be together again, and she would make sure his sacrifice marrying this … jumped up little rat-bag?  Thudding along with her stick and her bad leg?

Like mother?

  
  



	11. Vincit Opus Somnum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Alice wed.

Under other circumstance and clearer skies Thomas would have wanted to have set out with Alice for their honeymoon in Greece immediately, but even the trains to the coast were being halted by the storm.  

“The ship won’t be departing until tomorrow at this rate,” Mr. Meadows had assured him as they took a quick cup of whisky-laced tea in quiet of the library, to warm him up before the ceremony. “If even then, depending on where this weather is headed.  I’ve taken the liberty of booking the two of you a room at the Savoy, though it cost my poor man Parks some misery to get there and return. I may have to give him a raise.”

“I appreciate it, sir,” Thomas answered as his stomach curdled, having no other choice but gratitude.  His history with the Savoy was extensive and sordid. At least it was beautiful and he had not ever been had in their finest suite, which Mr. Meadows would have insisted upon for his child.

Thomas longed to be far from England and the winter, to see Alice only and watch as she saw the Aegean for the first time, as she would no doubt revel in the quality of the light, the depth of the blues.  He would wear a straw hat and sleep in the sun and she would paint. He would make love to her in brightest sunlight and the warmth would ease her leg.

“I believe it’s time,” Mrs. Meadows said, appearing behind her husband and kissing his cheek in a way that was quite forward for company.  But then, Thomas supposed, he was about to be family. 

He looked at the beautiful woman who was straightening a glove over her elbow, and the short, barrel-shaped man, as they both smiled at him with a semblance of fondness and with distinct pleasure that he was about to steal their child from them.  It occurred to him that in his brief time knowing them the Meadows had been better to him than his own parents had been in all of the years he had been with them. 

Even though he knew that fondness was but a reflection of their love for Alice it was still a difficult thing to experience.  He could ape the pleasure he should feel at this kindness, but his true emotions were confused. They did not know him. If they did, they would throw him out into the storm and hide their daughter from him forever.

“Sir Thomas, will you escort me in?” Mrs. Meadows said, offering her arm after her husband went to escort Alice down the aisle.  

The reverend, mercifully not knowing Thomas’s reputation, smiled jovially through the service.  Winnie cried as she did at all weddings, and then laughed at herself as she did as well. Mr. Meadows face was expressionless with solemnity, though his eyes may have been suspiciously damp.  

When Thomas lifted Alice’s veil for a moment he thought, “And now I shall wake.”

Instead, her quiet, lovely face was pink with nerves and her normally steady hand trembled a bit within his.  He learned that her middle name was Elizabeth and he could tell by her gaze that she was disappointed in the tasteful, modern ring that matched the engagement ring he had already given her, both supplied by Mr. Selfridge and paid for by her father.  Her lips were dry and warm when pressed to his and the neroli she always wore complimented the hot house orange blossoms of her massive bouquet.

He had never been so awake.

Alice was his.

Afterwards there were toasts with Roman punch and then a massive breakfast with all of the worst and most delicious excesses from both sides of the Atlantic.  Alice sat next to him, eating little and only sipping small amounts of coffee and champagne, though he knew she loved both drinks. Her mouth was pale and her lips thin.

When he saw her surreptitiously rubbing at her leg beneath the table when she thought herself unregarded he felt both relief and then guilt to know that it was simply her usual discomfort and not distress at her newly married state that left her so.

When the crowd clinked glasses, demanding a kiss from them, Thomas was gratified that she did not blush, but raised her face proudly to him.  

 

The grand suite at the Savoy was as warm as it was splendid, with velvet and silk upholstery upon mahogany furnishings. Glowing gas fixtures and expensive flowers - heliotrope and roses - perfuming the air.  A bottle of champagne waited to be opened next to a table laid with cookies and cakes.

But Alice was most thankful for the heat.  Though she had been heavily bundled in the carriage, with Thomas’s arm about her, the eternal damp of England had found its way beneath her cape and muff, leaving her shivering.  

Thomas deposited her lightly on the Persian carpet before the fireplace.  He had lifted her out of the carriage and would no doubt have carried her all of the way through the lobby and up the elevator had she not protested.  He had been allowed to take her back in his arms to enter the room for the sake of tradition and good luck. 

It was sweet for him to be so solicitous, but she worried about being a quite literal burden to him.  Then, perhaps her slow steps made him somewhat impatient, though his exquisitely careful manners would never allow him to show her if that were so.  His long legs carried him with swift ease through the world and it felt unfamiliar and exhilarating to move so quickly. 

After tipping the bellboys who had carried up both her absurd amount of luggage - her mother had gone a bit mad filling out Alice’s trousseau - and Thomas’s sensible trunk and valise, her husband returned to her and started to undo the buttons on the top of her cape.

She laughed.  A hard, barking sound that startled her as well as him.

“Have I tickled you?” He asked, taking a step back, a half-smile quirking his lips but not meeting his eyes which were serious with curiosity.  

“No.  I simply thought… I thought of you as my husband.”

The words made that bit of a smile fade and his eyes grow hard, “Which is amusing for what reason?”

“I never thought to have a husband, though I might have led my parents to think otherwise.  Even the kindest men who courted me, though I might have liked some, were without interest to me.  I never wanted a one of them for whatever reason.”

She took an easy step forward.  Her leg was being remarkably well-behaved.  She had had her maid, horrified or not, help her cinch it as tight as could be borne so she knew her limb would not buckle as she walked on her father’s arm to her groom.

For a moment Thomas seemed like he would take an equal step back but did not.  The toe of her normal boot touched his but she kept the heavy soled one back, “Having a husband at all is going to be a surprise to me for a time I am afraid.  Having you,” she brushed a bit of his hair back, damp with melted snow and curling about her gloved fingertips, “I fear I shall never grow used to. I will wake up each morning and seeing your face and knowing you are mine will shock me anew.  I may find myself needing to take less from the coffee pot at breakfast!” She add the last with a laugh, hoping to receive one in return.

She did not.

“Because of my face, you mean.”  He turned away from her, divesting himself of his own gloves and coat in quick, annoyed motions.  “My face has  _ ever _ been my fortune,” he said with a cold laugh of his own.  “And I am very fortunate, after all, to look so. It has opened so many doors for me.  Those attached to bedchambers especially. And pursestrings, of course. All I needed were a few nice manners, insinuating glances, and a ready cock and my face has given me all that I have.”

He expression dared her to answer that.

For the first time Alice saw something in Thomas that she had missed in all of her hours and hours of study of him.  

He  _ hated  _ his looks.  The very thing that made him the center of attention, that caused envy and admiration, that had drawn her to him in the beginning, was despicable to him.  He hated himself for them and for what he had done with them. The same ugly scorn that other gentlemen held for him and his profession he held for himself. 

Perhaps even more.  There was always something to Thomas’s self-hate that she did not understand, that seemed an older wound than the cuts he took on a daily basis.  A killing wound that had not finished ending him.

Taking off her own gloves, not looking at him, she spoke softly, just intent to keep him from interrupting as she knew he would want to do.  “I feel rather bad, then, that I was one of those who wanted you for your beauty when first I saw you. You are beautiful, Thomas. Every bit of you.  I love beauty. I crave it. Want to create it myself, want to gorge myself upon it, and you are the most beautiful being in all of creation to me. But I would not have married you for your beauty alone or for it at all.  Were you disfigured, were I struck blind, I would still want you, still love you.”

“I-” he turned away, clearly meaning to dismiss her words.

“I would love you no matter what, husband.  When I told you I loved you before, when we were…”  Alice stuttered a bit at the memory, her body flushing and suddenly damp all over, “when I told you I loved you I never mentioned your face, your body, though I admire them beyond reason.  But I would love you no matter your appearance.”

“Stop.”  His voice was a croak.  Then, before she could answer, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her cruelly, violently, as if to push the words back down her throat so he might pretend they had never been spoken.

But when she joined him in the kiss, pushing back, her hands pulling him closer and her tongue eagerly seeking his, standing on her toes despite the pain so she could press harder to his mouth, his chest, Thomas moaned and wrapped her close, insensible with need.

“Oh, my Alice, my wife…” 

The bed was decorously turned down, but Thomas grabbed the velvet quilts and linen sheets and with a hard yank stripped it bare.  He pushed Alice onto the mattress, and stripped off his own clothing too quickly for her to take pleasure in. It was as if he suddenly could not tolerate the feel of cloth on his skin.  

He was rampant, his cock upright and where the head emerged from the foreskin it was brilliantly red.  

Alice could not take off her wedding gown without assistance, but rather than undress her, Thomas knelt beside the bed, pushing her skirts up in a wave of satin and lace that covered her face.  He made quick work of her boots and she could hear them smack on the carpeted floor, sounding as if he had flung them away. He removed the delicate, silk stocking from her proper leg and ran his hands up and down it, his lips trailing softly behind his touch.  

When she moved to sit up, to stop what she knew would be his next act, he bit her, a hard, firm nip to her achilles, the pain sending a throb upward that settled between her legs.  

There was a pause, and she felt him touching the straps of her brace, his fingers skimming over the stocking beneath.  “Why are these so tight?” His voice sounded like an overwound clock.

“I wanted to be certain I could walk without my cane today.”

“You are never to do this to yourself again.”  

He unstrapped her brace and she was so sensitive to him that she could feel the faintest tremble in his fingers even though the heavy sock and stiff leather.  

The blood flooded back into her thigh, her calf, her foot.  For a moment the numbness remained but then it was agony. Alice moaned and rocked side to side, biting hard into the satin sleeve of her dress to keep from sobbing.  The fabric slid between her teeth and she chewed and chewed at it, trying to breath as thousands of small, hot blades pricked her skin from foot to hip. Her fingers cramped from squeezing her skirts and it was all she could do to refrain from balling up to hide from the pain.

Thomas’s arms were about her, holding her to his chest, “Here,” he said, gently pulling the fabric from her fingers so they clutched at him instead, moving her head so it lay against his shoulder and she bit into his skin.  He wrapped a long, bare leg over her tenderly, not pressing on her bad leg but covering it, so she could coil about him and under him and ride out the misery. “Cry, Alice. Flood me, I want your tears.”

For the space of a breath Alice refrained.  She loathed crying, having done so much of it as a child her eyes ached just to hear the very word ‘tears’.  When she had been with other children they would commonly say that she was a witch or ghost because her eyes were red like blood rather than blue or brown.  She would cry harder, saying her eyes were not, making them say it more. They had already been afraid of her because of her dragging leg and heavy step…

Then Thomas kissed her softly where the vein in her temple beat wildly with the pain and she could hold no longer, flooding him as he wished.  She found herself babbling under the sobs, “I thought you would not come. I knew that the storm was what stopped you but I was afraid. I was so afraid that you changed your mind.  That you had gone away.”

“I told you that once I had you that I would never let you go, and I meant my words.  You belong to me now and I will always come to you.” 

After a time the tears stopped themselves and the pain lessened to its typical level and Alice realized that at some point Thomas had managed to remove her stocking and he had  _ seen _ .  

Oh, he had seen!  

The deep markings left behind by the wearing of the straps and metal of the brace upon her skin, that would no longer return to normal but were now permanent stigmata.  He had seen the way the bone did not lay perfectly straight, either above or below her subtly twisted knee. He had seen the heavy, unladylike muscles that had developed from carrying the weight of her brace. He had seen the scars from the surgeries and the worst one, a rough oval cicatrix with jagged edges from where one of the breaks that she had been given had been too harsh and she had seen the bone.

That time had nearly been the death of her, and the end of the attempts to fix her.  Her father’s enthusiastic certainty had broken along with her thigh bone that day. 

She moaned again, this time in shame, and tried to push her skirts, her petticoats, over it, but Thomas grabbed her hand and pulled it and its twin over her head, holding both wrists in one hand while he gently ran the palm of the other over and over her scars and hurts.  When she moved to roll away, to hide the one limb with the other he pinned her right leg beneath him. All of the time kissing along her jaw, her chin, lightly brushing over her mouth with his, his eyes closed and breath deep and drugged.

It felt so wrong to be touched there.  Other than washing herself and pulling up her sock even Alice never touched that unpleasant flesh.  Only now and then would a proper doctor, properly hidden by a screen, examine it quickly with gloved hands and cold but mostly painless instruments.  

Thomas’s hands, with their strange contrast of elegant, long fingers, and calloused palms, were wonderful.  After a few moments she ceased struggling and let him minister to her.

His phallus was still hard and prodded through the bunches of lace and satin as if seeking her.  

How could that be?  How could his body, his being, be anything but revulsed by the sight of her as she was entire?

“Do you,” she gulped and then spoke again, “do you  _ like _ that I am deformed?”

“No, my wife.   _ Mon ange _ , I do not.  Because it speaks of so much pain.  But it also speaks of your strength and to be mine, to belong to me, to have me belong to you, there is so much strength you will need.”

He used that word over and over.

Belong.

Alice would have thought that she would not like that word applied to her.  But she did. She loved it. As she felt better now, her belonging to him made her breasts feel heavy and peak as if pinched.  His belonging to her left her wet and aching within her femininity.

His hand now found that place and worked through the convenience slit in her pantaloons, now stroking there.  First along the outside, and then up and down the crease in long, slow gestures. He circled her pearl with just one finger and, all pain forgotten, her lips raised to chase the pleasure.  

“Please…” she slurred, trying to find his mouth, her body euphoric, yet heavy and hungry.

“Please, what, my love?” he teased lightly, not letting her kiss him.

“You know…” she blushed and tried to turn away.

He let go of her hands and leaned over her, studying her face with a cool smile. “This?” he stopped and she cried out, “Or this?” 

He plunged his finger deep within her, and then made some manner of gesture inside of her body that flooded her senses with maddening pleasure and joy, freeing her mind of the constraint of thought.

When she returned herself she found her good leg shamelessly crossed over her bad one to trap his hand and so she could work again the hardness of his touch as she rode out further ecstasy.  She moved to stop and he pushed again, smiling more, taking delight in her disarray and desperation.

“Join me,” she panted out, her body exhausted from both torment and bliss but wanting more from him.

The smile faded from his face, feral, almost frightening in that alteration.  With deliberate motions he pulled her right leg apart from the left and placing his hips between her legs, bunching the heavy skirts about her waist, folding her good leg so it was bent at his side and then slowly working his way within her.  

His phallus, so startlingly large when seen, and when last within her, was accepted more easily this time.  There was still some discomfort, but little more. He held as each inch entered her, teeth gritted, sweat forming on his brow.  She touched his face, his beautiful face, which she loved no longer for its perfection but for it being Thomas’s, though it was perfect.

His blue eyes met hers, his brows together and for a moment he looked so young and innocent, as if he was asking her a question.

“Do as you will, my beloved,” she answered.

Thomas was perfectly still and then, with a snarl, his hips began to piston, driving and pulling, her body jolting roughly under the assault of it.  The beating of his cock - she thought of it as that suddenly and felt herself grow wetter at the word - in her and his pubis bone grinding on her pearl, made her wild.

Her good leg wrapped itself about his hip.

He moaned and moved faster, if faster he could move.  Alice felt her peak rise again, making small, stuttering noises, and this time using her leg and back and him, she bowed upwards to him and pulled at his hair and cried out so loudly that she could even hear herself.

Three more rough thrusts and Thomas had completed as well, a howl as feral as his actions loosing itself from him as he clutched at her, covering her entirely beneath him as if to hide her from the world.

  
  



	12. Ena Diáleimma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sharpes go on their wedding trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided on the sending Thomas and Alice to Greece before that country's current nightmare - indeed large part of Europe's nightmare - had begun. I feel like it would be remiss if I didn't mention them and link to where you can send help if you are in a position to do so - 
> 
> https://www.fastcompany.com/90207848/how-to-help-greece-wildfire-victims-4-things-you-can-do-that-take-less-than-5-minutes

As they approached the tiny island of Astypalaia it seemed to glow in the blazing, late afternoon light and offered jewel-like colors more vivid and rare than Alice had either seen or dreamt of before.  

There had been a ferry commissioned to take them from the mainland to the Dodecaneses Archipelago and then specifically to the house they would be staying at on Astypalaia.  The Sharpes moved from point to point with little in the way of respite after the many days train journey that had left Alice feeling jounced and jostled to the point of becoming ill.  Even the sudden heat as they had passed some invisible line that separated the north from the south in their journey, had felt wonderful in her limbs but was overwhelming to her throbbing head.

In spite of her protestations Thomas had insisted on carrying her from the train to the waiting carriage and from the carriage to the boat.  

She knew it pleased him to help her, even though her pride stung at it.  And she blushed at the knowing nods and smiles of the other occupants of the train, of the porters in the station, of the fishermen in the dock.  The screams of the birds over head and the tense smell of the hot ocean and dead fish had made her temples ache and whenever Thomas had tried to speak to her Alice had found herself ignoring him, fearing she might find herself being even more rude and difficult than she had been thus far.

Travel was always a trial for her, and the fact that she’d had begun her monthly courses the morning after their night at the Savoy had only added to the discomfort - her leg was more swollen, there was the constant feeling of her skin being irritated by her clothing, by the air itself, the dirtiness of the sooty train, her fear that she was already disappointing her new husband by not being… available to him.  

Her internally admitted disappointment at the same.   

Not that Thomas had complained or even expressed the slightest hint that he might in turn be disappointed as well.  Which was rather humiliating in itself. 

Rather, he had seen effortlessly to all of her needs, be it an extra pillow, a hot water bottle, or a cup of tea laced with sherry or a touch of something strong, purchased from the elderly French doctor with very grand, snowy white moustache and cheap suit, who was on the train with them.  He had opened his cracked and rather worn leather case and offered up a small, blue bottle with no label - and an expression of little demure at the unorthodox transaction - for a few francs.

It was brown and sticky and had tasted vile.  However, that night had been the only one that Alice had slept through as they rushed across Europe.  Her head had been so fuzzy the next day that she feared she would not be able to keep her feet in the swaying passageways of the cars and so had refused more of it even as Thomas begged her to reconsider, his expression displeased.

He had urged her to reconsider, citing her clear pain and saying he would happily take her arm, and that there was little that they needed outside of the lavish Pullman car they traveled in, at any rate. She had snapped at him that just because she did not need to do something did not mean she might not wish to, and then, ashamed of herself but unable to explain, had spent much of that day staring out of the window at the landscape as snow slowly retreated and the earth turned brown and green.

The poor man was barely wed and he was finding himself shackled to a shrew who could not walk, could not entertain him in their marriage bed, and found fault with his consideration, she thought.  But it made her no less irritable or uncomfortable.

That morning she had watched where he sat across the swaying car, half hidden by a green velvet curtain that divided the space.  He had taken off his coat and jacket, and had rolled up his sleeves and was bent over a teakwood escritoire. The way his shoulder moved and the ease of his arm led her to believe he was sketching rather than writing.  Plans for one of those mysterious, mechanical projects she had seen bits of in his rooms.

Alice had  longed to stand and walk over, to lean on that broad, strong shoulder and see what his work was.  To, perhaps, touch her chin softly to the heavy black curls on the top of his head, his hair having been spared pomade that morning.  Knowing that he drew, even if it was in the manner of draftsman, made her feel closer to him and yet sad that he did not chose to share the particulars of it with her.

Yet her deplorable rudeness to him these last, awkward days as she found herself displaying all of the worst of her character that she tried so hard to hide - her angry frustration at the limits upon her and the way it seemed to magnify all other problems as they occurred -  kept her shy of invading his privacy since he had not after all offered to share his work with her.

By the time they had arrived in the station in Greece she had found herself no longer privately  _ indisposed _ and her leg felt better than it had in some time for having been effectively off of it for days, but she nonetheless quietly consented to his aid.  Her dress was too heavy for the weather and she had no doubt Thomas’s winter wool suit was the same, and she noted a few drops of perspiration on his brow.  To her shock Alice found herself wondering what it would feel like, taste like, to touch the tip of her tongue to one of them?

As she waited, perched like a robin their pile of trunks on the hot and bad smelling dock, Thomas had conferred with the captain of the little ferry for rather longer than made sense, referring to a number of papers he had produced from his pocket and then shaking the man’s hand with great vigour.  She prayed that her mother had taken the change of climate into proper account when arranging for her things to be packed, desperate for lighter dress to wear during their stay.

“You look very pleased,” she said when he finally returned to her.  From under her red and ecru striped parasol she could only see the lower portion of his face and the wide, un-Thomaslike grin that he had.  

Rather than address his happiness, Thomas simply offered her his hand, “We should be there in less than an hour.”

Now, as she watched the tiny island appear before them, a breeze cooled by the Aegean - that very same wine-dark sea of myth now the deepest and most clear blue imaginable - the tension of the journey disappeared from her body and her thoughts as Alice breathed in the colors and the beauty.

The white of the buildings that seemed carved from the low mountains was not like other whites that she had known, but was something that could only have been produced by years and years of sunlight slowly bleaching what was already the color of snow to something even more radiant.  The hills were a warm brown where the earth and stone were dotted with a kind of fir green cover until it reached the pale beaches and then that impossibly blue ocean. 

White.  Brown. Green.  Blue. Nothing else.  There were no flowers or flowering herbs to interrupt the endless shades of those few colors.

As they rounded the island to deliver them directly to the house her father had taken for them, the sun began to fall and there was a cove where the blue water had deep green eddies and Alice gasped at it.

In a moment, Thomas who had been sitting on one of the lounging chairs and apparently watching her as she watched the landscape, was at her side, “Is something wrong?  Do you need to sit?” His voice was anxious and soft.

“No.  No I am quite well.  Do you see that?” She pointed at the spot where the sea brushed on the algae painted rocks.  

“Yes.  It’s a beautiful spot.  I wonder if we can achieve it from land, or perhaps I can borrow a boat and row you to it for a picnic whist we are staying.”

But she shook her head, “Yes, it’s lovely.  But the color. I’ve only ever seen it one other place and it _ is  _ beautiful.  The most beautiful.”

He looked at her, his head slightly cocked and that fine line between his brows, that was just slightly to the left of true, formed.  

Alice touched her gloved palm to the blade of his cheek and as carefully as she could, fearing he might jerk away like a startled hawk, touched her fingers to the tips of his lashes, wishing her hand were bare.  “It is the color of your eyes. I have never seen it elsewhere, not exactly, not perfectly. I tried to mix it, but could not find the way.”

With a dismissive laugh, he backed from her touch, grabbing her hand a touch too tightly and pressing a hard kiss the palm of her glove, “I thought that his eyes were to be closed in pain as the venom dripped.”

With a deep breath, Alice confessed, “Not in that painting.  I- there is another I have worked on. I wanted to paint you, just you, but I knew you would never consent to sit for me in that case.  You so hate to be seen. So I painted the one work which has I admit come to obsess me, as a blind for the other. I should have told you before, I am very sorry for… stealing you for my work.  But I could not stop myself even though I knew that it was wrong of me to use your confidence thus.”

Thomas closed his eyes for a moment, seeming to sway, and then pulled her to him, for once not seeming to care if he was taking her balance, lifting her so her toes left the wooden deck, so his face was pressed to her hair and knocked her hat askew.  “Oh,  _ ma mie _ , neither could I,” he whispered against her.

Before she could ask him what he meant, she heard one of the sailors call out something in Greek, and then the captain in English, that they were about to dock.

Thomas put her back down and straightened her hat, adjusting the fine veiling so it covered her eyes and then offered his arm with a small bow, his demeanor that of the practiced dance partner but his voice raspy with feeling that he seemed unable to hide, “Shall we, Lady Sharpe?”

There was a small dock and a wooden walkway that gave them an easy route to the house.  Two trees, a rarity on in the starkly lovely landscape, one a great laurel and the other a fragrant sweet olive, offered shade to two chairs and a small table on a stoney outcropping near the ocean.  It was a perfect place to paint, and Alice thought wistfully of her supplies neatly packed up back in London.

The servants that had been hired had prepared everything for them.  The house was in the blocky style of the local architecture, but on a larger scale with vast windows hung with white gauze to temper the Mediterranean sunlight.  In anticipation of the night the house was hung with lanterns and candles, there being no gas or electricity yet on the island or at least this farthest part of it.  

A generously sized woman dressed in black stood by the open door, giving direction to the men from the ferry who were bringing their things.  Although her dark grey hair was pulled back in a ruthlessly severe fashion, she had a pleasant if formal manner, as she spoke in rapid Greek to Thomas who translated on the fly.

“Mrs. Vassos has been engaged as our housekeeper and cook.  Her sons will be doing any heavy work we might need, and her daughter will be assisting her and can also function as your maid in the morning and evenings.  For tonight, she has gone ahead and made us a cold supper and prepared everything else we might need, but thought we might prefer privacy for our first night.  If not, she can plan to stay.” 

Four servants seemed a bit excessive for the size of the building, but then it there was probably not a great deal of employment available on such a small island and her father had probably considered what would be a fair wage on Astypalaia to be a pittance so why not set them up in style?  

For a moment there was silence until Alice realized they were waiting for her answer, “No, no that will not be necessary.  Please thank her for me, for us.”

After a few exchanged words, Mrs. Vassos nodded and curtsied with a proud grace, and then motioned to the house, clearly wishing to show them around before she departed.  

The rooms were decorated in a style more Classical than modern, with long, low couches that looked comfortable but rather tricky to pull herself up from, and the only real decoration being the elaborate mosaics in the floors and tabletops that mimicked the colors of the land and water.  A few stalky plants were placed here and there, and a bit of what were good reproductions of Greek statuary as well, though all of the nudes were more decorously draped than they most likely would have been in a time that found more comfort in the beauty of the human form.

Finally, after seeing the rather neat little kitchen and a pretty office, Mrs. Vassos pushed open a pair of glass doors from that room that Alice had assumed would show a garden.  

Instead, it showed paradise.

The great, curved room was probably once meant as a conservatory or maybe an oddly placed ballroom, but it had been turned into a studio.  The curtains had been pulled up and out of the way of the massive windows, letting in a vista view of the place where the mountains tumbled into the sea.  A chaise had been placed in the center of the room, and three easels had been set up at different places to give differing views, each with a high, straight backed chair beside it.  

Set carefully against the wall were her canvases, all still wrapped and encased in wood to keep them safe while on their journey.  Her wooden case of paints and brushes was on a large table, beside a massive, black vase filled with scarlet  anemones.  

Her beloved red, now even more glorious with life in this light-filled, pale space.

“Thomas, I-”

She could not speak, she could only wander about the room, stunned.  Finally, he stopped her, taking her hands and looking down at them as he stroked her gloved knuckles with his leather clad thumbs.

“I could not buy you a house, Alice.  I could not even pay for this honeymoon.  But I could do this. Your father wanted us to stay in Athens.  Thought you would like the museums there, but I had thought that maybe this… That you might prefer to work, than to study further the work of others,” he finished with an embarrassed smile.

Alice’s heart quickened and ached that he knew.

At that moment one of the Vassos’ sons entered, carrying Thomas’s grey portfolio embossed with the Sharpe family crest and motto and its matching pencil and pen case.  It was where he kept his own projects. Thomas thanked him and then went to a table near one of the windows to put it down.

“I had also thought, if it would not distract you, that I might share some of your ligh- some of the light in this room as well.”

Mrs. Vassos discreetly let herself out, the quiet click of the doors closing unheard over the sound of Thomas husky breathing mingled with Alice’s as she kissed him with all of the sudden, liquescent wanting she felt.

Alice found herself behaving in the most shameless way with her husband.  She pushed his coat from his shoulders, finding that the heat had made him soak through his linen, shirt, waistcoat, and jacket.  The fresh smell of the sandalwood soap and his own skin was like a soft cloud about her as she worked her fingers beneath his necktie and then made quick work of removing it.

While she did so he pulled the pin from her hat and tossed it away.  

The studs at his neck and the first few of his shirt pinged onto the stone floor, rolling away, and Alice found it impossible not to grab a thick handful of his hair and pull him down so she could press her mouth to his long neck, to make him writhe under her kiss.  

Her coat joined his upon the floor.  Thomas grabbed her behind through layers of cotton and silk and pushed her against him, bending his knees, scooping down with his hips so he could press his erection against her skirts where she could feel it even though the labyrinth of his clothing and hers.

Rather than demure, even as she felt her body flush harder, the place between her legs prickling and flooded and swollen, she pushed back, planting her bad leg and counting on her brace to hold her as she carelessly wrapped an ankle about his to lock them in place and then rocked back and forth.  Even the faint rubbing and pressure against her pearl was enough to send gentle spasms through her groove and deep within. As if simply doing this would be enough to send her to a climax.

What a wanton I have so quickly become, she thought with no shame and more than a little, confusing pride.

“Alice, oh god, Alice, I cannot wait, I cannot wait-”

His eyes were closed, and he pulled away enough to rip his gloves off and then grab her roughly by the jaw, kissing her with no art, only abandon.  When his tongue thrust into her mouth and licked everywhere she found herself moving against his body in a matching rhythm.

“Don’t, don’t wait,” she pleaded.

 

Still holding her jaw hard against his, Thomas wrapped his free arm about Alice’s waist and carried her, still kissing, still making obscene noises that occasionally turned into obscene words about how he’d dreamt of her cunt every night and day since they had left London.  Of how he wanted to bury himself in her and never let her free from his impaling cock. All of the filth that he had loathed in the past now poured from his lips like song from a bird.

He lay Alice on the chaise in the middle of the room and made quick work of her travel dress, which was of the looser, more modern style and came off in a slither of silk,that torture device that her poor leg was forever trapped within laid aside with distaste.

All was gone leaving her naked before him, her sweet, soft body marked from the corset, from the garters, from that terrible brace.  He hated those marks and wanted her to only ever be bedecked with those he would give her. Her ashen hair had half fallen down, her mouth was red and full from kisses and the stubble he had done a poor job of removing on the rocking train this morning.  She looked the image of a fallen woman. His woman.

His cock was in agony.

His own clothing was gone in a trice, with no time for nicety and a bit of tearing in his haste and sudden, lustful clumsiness.  He was all lust and nerves. Alice had been so miserable on their journey and every possible fear of why had assailed him. She regretted if not him, for he trusted her words to him, her love of him though God alone could understand it, but perhaps regretted the haste of it.  Or she was ill, not merely having her monthlies, but truly ill. He had made her pregnant already and something had gone wrong with it, as he knew from the past that it could go so horribly wrong. 

He had feared that somehow she would be taken from him.  

Kneeling beside the chaise he ran two fingers up her slit, gathering wet and rubbing them in hard circles over her clit.  Her eyes rolled up and flutter closed. “Open your eyes, love, open them.” Blearily, she complied, her mouth open.

He entered her in one slow, long thrust, trying to find some of his old control so he might stretch it out, make it good for her.  Give her the pleasure that he had thrown away on so many others for mere money. Her honey-sweet cunt, tight and hot and dripping for him, to her wet rolled down his cock and wet his legs, pulled him and it was all he could do to not hump her like an animal.

Staying slow, he told her all of that.  Of how she felt. Of how much he loved her soaking him, that he would bathe in her wet if he could.  Then he slung her good leg over his shoulder and went faster as she wiggled and writhed and tried to find her finish.

Thomas pressed hard on her abdomen with one wide hand, at once helping her feel more pleasure and hindering its finish.

“Thomas,” she began to moan his name, wanting him to do something for her but not certain what to ask for.  With an unkind smile that he could feel from the inside, he slid that hand down, the touch making her already sensitive flesh jump madly beneath his hand and nearly sending him to his own too early end.

Then, there was noise from outside.

Through the open windows there were voices speaking in hushed, perhaps amused Greek.  The Vassos’s were finishing their preparations to leave, but Alice did not know that. “I think they can hear us…” he teased.

She tensed beneath him, her cunt tightening as well and again he nearly came.  “We should be… we should be quiet,” she whispered.

He leaned forward and ground against her clit, “I can be quiet, but can you, my pretty wife?” he whispered under the wail of pleasure that came from her.  He moved his hips back, still dragging and grinding and she went wild beneath him. 

“Please, stop, I-”

He did it again, loving how she clutched at him arms, at his cock, as she helplessly moved against him.  

Thomas tenderly, unyieldingly, put his palm over her mouth, his fingers pressing, and ground again.  Her eyes were filled with gratitude as she whimpered as he worked her mercilessly, making her come again and again.

When she bit his hand hard enough to find the bone when she had her second climax it was more than he could stand.  Pulling her hair so he could bury his face and his own screams against the tender skin of her shoulder, he left her a bite mark there to match the one she had given him.

Afterwards, Thomas padded naked through the quiet, empty house and returned with the tray of the dinner the excellent Mrs. Vassos left them and a bottle of retsina that had been left to cool in an old stone cistern that worked as a sink.  He and Alice shared the meal and the chaise, not dressing, but feeding each other and sharing a silk quilt that he had also brought from their not yet used bedchamber.

When the moon was high and turned the sea to silver Thomas pulled the chaise to the windows and made love to Alice in the silver light.  Afterwards they lay together quietly until she asked, “And what do you think of this as a subject for a painting?”

“Most of the lovers in the Greek myths are rather tragic, I think,” he answered.

“Alcyone and Ceyx, perhaps?” she offered.

“Hades and Persephone, rather,” he answered.  

Shaking her head, Alice kissed those names away from his lips.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alcyone and Ceyx were a Queen and King in Ancient Greece who were so happy and blissfully in love that the gods punished them for it. The term halcyon, especially as used in halcyon days, is from Alcyone's name and is meant to recall how happy their time together was.


	13. Praeterita Spe Vincit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice and Thomas return to London

Alice and Thomas spent the morning of their last day on Astypalaia in the small, private cove that could only be reached by boat.  She was weary, her nerves having been frayed the previous afternoon by supervising and guiding the Vassos’s in the crating and packing of her canvases and supplies.  They were excellent workers and extremely careful, certainly as much because of their mother’s stern gaze as her own, bootless fretting, but it was always terrifying to watch someone approach her work with a hammer and a handful of nails.

Especially the newer pieces that were mostly likely dry enough but one could never be certain…

Then there was the growing dread of the journey back to London, which for the last several days had grown larger in her mind.  Though she tried to hide it Thomas had reasoned out what was bothering her with little effort. The man was dangerously intuitive about her emotions, which she was certain had come as a result of his former career, being that it was not a trait that in Alice’s experience was common amongst men.

“My love, you should not waste your strength on worries about what is to be,” he had crossed the room from where he had just finished packing his own tools of work and the project he had been consumed with while she was at her easel.  It was in so many parts that Alice could not even hazard a guess as to what it was, but how she had enjoyed watching him work, when he was too intent to feel her gaze. She had even done a study of his hands as he tightened a tiny gear, a small, brass tool of some kind held delicately in his elegant fingers.  

In an effort to ease her mind, Thomas had insisted on the their visiting the cove.  It was the most private place on the island. Indeed, it was the most private place Alice had ever been.  

The first time they had visited, bearing a picnic, Alice had sat under her parasol of pale grey silk on rug that he had brought for her comfort and watched with trepidation as Thomas swam naked.  When he rose, water sheeting from his perfect form, his hair black and wildly curled now that it was wet, he had stalked to her across the white rock and put out his hand.

“Come into the water with me, Alice.”  

“I-, no, I cannot swim,” she said, a hand fluttering lightly about her neck.  He was like Triton, come from the sea to seduce an unwary mortal who could not survive in his element.

He smiled a bit, “Will you trust me to keep you safe?”  Though he spoke lightly she knew that it was no light matter for him that she should.  

“I have no bathing costume.”

“Why do you think I wish to have you swim?” he said with a laugh, reaching down to lift her up.  In the light, unclothed, they were both nearly as pale as the stone beneath their feet, and when he removed her brace Thomas carried her to the water.  She clutched him tightly, and he walked very slowly so she could grow accustomed to warm, salty water and the feeling of vastness that came from being in the sea.  

With great care he had lay her on the water, “Stay still.  I have you,” his hands were under her back, and his face was solemn, “let the water hold you up.”  

There was no weight anywhere, and for the first time in longer than she could remember she felt no pain from her leg.  “Oh,” it was a small sound, but Thomas smiled down at her. After that, every day save the one that had rained, they had gone to the cove and Alice learned to swim, strong in the water and quick to learn.

That last morning she swam around Thomas, letting herself coil around his skin, now subtly touched with gold from so much time in the sun.  They both were, after both also recovering from a bout of painful sunburn that Mrs. Vassos had given them a salve for, shaking her head at their foolishness.  

“Come to me, my lovely mermaid,” Thomas said, lifting her up so she floated before him, her hands moving over his chest, her lips finding his, as their skin slid together.  Each day of their idyll they had made love. Sometimes over and over, sometimes only once, but with their bodies locked tightly long enough for the sun to move away from where it streamed into their bedroom, leaving them panting in the darkness together.  

With a practiced touch between her legs, Thomas felt for the slicker wetness her body gave up for him, his thumb teasing at her pearl, until her head lay on his shoulder, her mouth helplessly kissing his neck.  When he judged her ready, he wrapped her good leg about his waist and let her lower herself onto his phallus. Her other leg was more agile in the water and she was able to wrap her ankle about his knee. 

Slowly, as if feeling this would be the last time they would be here, be exactly as they were at this moment, they moved together in the smallest of increments, giving the pleasure between them time to unfold and find its own way.  They did not kiss, their mouths only inches apart, but only stared at each other, hypnotised by the heat, the brilliance of the sun on their skin, on the water, feeling as if what was happening at that moment was as endless as the ocean itself.

As always, Thomas ensured Alice’s peak, gently easing her to her back, so he could touch her whilst using her weightlessness to push her back and forth upon him, so he could watch her with that possessive, scorching gaze, as if he could sustain himself on the sight of her pleasure and completion.  

 

The cold of London came not just from the icy air from the last few, lingering weeks of winter when spring should already have started to show.  No, the capitol’s cold was its old, stone buildings, the bricks underfoot, and the vast Thames, turgid and filthy with melted snow, and was an assault when they disembarked from the train.

Though the weather had grown colder steadily from the time they left Greece, the islands having been unseasonably warm during their stay, it seemed that England was experiencing the reverse.  That winter had buried its teeth deep into Thomas’s country’s haunch and worried it like a starving wolf with a plump hare. Thomas was pleased to see that Alice’s parents had brought their automotive rather than a carriage, as well as extra blankets and a hot water bottle for her leg.  

Then, he thought ruefully, they had seen to her needs for her entire life, he had only for a few months.  

“Alice, oh my darling!  You’re as brown as a berry!”  Her mother said, embracing her daughter carefully so as to not knock her over, the platform being treacherously icy.  Thomas looked at his wife’s ever-so-slightly pinked skin, now blushing under her mother’s scrutiny.

“You got some of that sun, as well, it looks like, Thomas,” her father said, walking over from where he was seeing to their trunks. 

  
“Excellent to see you, sir,” he said, taking Mr. Meadows proffered hand  “It was quite sunny. We spent a great deal of time out of doors.”

Meadows nodded, his eyes narrowing, “I like it.  Healthy looking on both of you. Maybe we’ll start a new fashion.  Get some of my mannequins to spend some time out on the lake before they show off the new styles when we get back to Chicago.”

Mrs. Meadows shook her head, as they seated themselves in the luxurious back of the crankless touring Cadillac.  Thomas had heard of them but had never thought to see one and wished he might have an opportunity to look under its hood.  “Oscar, even you will never persuade women that looking like they have been working as…as… field-hands under the hot sun is chic.”

“We’ll see, my dear, we shall see.  Now, children, tell us all about Greece.”  He laughed ruefully, “The parts you can tell us about, at any rate.”

Alice and her mother laughed, and Thomas felt a bit shocked but then joined them.  Mr. Meadows may have been wildly rich, and had come from a decent background, but years of working with builders, stevedores, and with any number and types of tradesmen had left him earthier than most men of his station.  And that obscene wealth meant he never worried about what anyone thought of him. 

Thomas envied him.  

“It was beautiful, even if the journey was not,” Alice began.  The two of them, having been each other’s only true companion for those weeks, along with the seclusion and the intensity of the intimacy they had shared beginning when he had first modeled for her, had already begun speaking in that shorthand language of references and experiences that was usual in those who had been wedded for some time.  As a result they finished each others stories, their words tangled as one would begin a sentence that would be taken up by the other, then returned to its progenitor who would then find themself distracted by another anecdote, which would then distract them both. How much the Meadows learned about Greece was questionable, but they did learn a great deal about the nature of the early days of their daughter’s marriage and shared a knowing, pleased, and not as discreet look as they might have thought.

Thomas held one of Alice’s hands in both of his.  Her small, white gloved hand disappeared within his black leather covered ones.  He knew that the Meadows had purchased them a home as a wedding gift and had worked on having it prepared for them whilst they were away.  He prayed that it was finished, that they would not have to stay with her generous and shockingly kind family for any length of time. He was greedy for privacy with his wife after the loud crowds on the trains and ships they had taken.  For time to see to her and to let her settle in to a routine with her work rather than waiting.

Ruefully, he admitted to himself, it was because he just did not wish to share her any more than would be essential.  

If only Allerdale were liveable!  How he would love to have a proper home to take her to, somewhere beautiful and secluded, with good light where she could paint and he could work on his own projects.  They could have guests - her family, Winnie and her children, a few, carefully selected others - just often enough to satisfy society without having to disrupt their lives.  

But even if Allerdale were as it had been at the height of his family’s power and wealth he would never take Alice there.  Never. The thought of her in his parent’s bed, or sitting in that great, winged chair that gave him nightmares as a child, where it folded him in its embrace and he suffocated within wood and cloth, made his head throb.  

The streets were crowded and by the time they reached their destination it was already growing dark, and a little grey snow was seeping from the sky.

“Here we are,” Mr. Meadows said, as the auto pulled up to an elegant townhome, not far from where he and his wife were staying.  It was in the Second Empire style that he knew Alice especially favored, complete with a mansard roof of blue slate and an enormous number of windows, all illuminated, giving off a golden glow.  

It was built of brilliantly red brick.

“My man told me this house was made with bricks fired from the clay from your pit, Thomas.  I thought it would make an appropriate choice,” Mr. Meadows said. 

The throb in Thomas’s head turned into an ax-blade.  

He gave the Meadows’ three happily expectant faces his most dazzling smile.  The one he had given to countless women when they wanted him to dance. “It’s perfect, sir.  I’m sure we’ll be very happy here.”

 

Alice smoothed the gloves of her costume nervously.  Thomas smiled at her fondly. “You look lovely,” he said.

“I feel rather ridiculous,” she answered, reaching up to touch the halo that was cunningly attached by a wire to the false fall of golden hair that she wore.  It brushed now and then on the roof of the carriage and she was afraid of it snagging on the cloth. Thomas had convinced her that out of the costumes her father had sent over for them to choose from that the angel suited her the most.  

“You are, after all, an angel, and it will be the least trouble for you to walk in as it has no ludicrous underpinnings.”

“I am far from an angel.  Just as your costume is equally inappropriate.  If clever,” she added.

Thomas looked a down at himself.  He had chosen the devil costume because it was the only one sent that was not somehow military or based on an animal.  The rich, deep red velvet made his eyes seem almost eerily blue, and he had forgone the hood that was traditional, but rather removed the horns and found a way to wear them without it, so they peeped from his Byronic curls.  

Thomas looked away, staring out of the window.  “You are my angel, and this costume suits me very well.”

“Not so to either,” she rapped him soundly on the arm with her masquerade stick. “Though you are beautiful enough to be Lucifer,” she sighed.  

“We shall agree to disagree,” he said, then looked at her, his gaze severe and subduing, “in this one case.”  He leaned forward and took her hands. “I think it is not only your costume that has you concerned?”

It was true.  This was their first social event as a married couple.  For the weeks they had been back they had both been occupied in setting up their home.  Most of it was furnished, but her mother had wisely left those details of decoration and the matter of servants and those other hundred little details that would make the house into their home to the two of them.  Additionally, it was the custom to allow newlyweds a certain amount of time to grow used to their married state before expecting them to accept invitations. 

Apart from a few morning calls with her mother, and Thomas meeting with the manager of the his mine, they had been alone together for long enough that Alice found herself strangely shy at the thought of being out.

In truth, she had not missed any of the parties, or dinners, and certainly not the balls, where she was doomed to be a wallflower even as a new bride.  Alice had not even the theatre, which she rather enjoyed as a rule. She had never been so content. But she had worried about Thomas, for whom the dinner table and the ballroom were his natural environment.  No matter how many assurances he had given her, surely he must be bored with only her conversation and companionship?

When their invitation to this fancy dress ball was at Winnie’s arrived they both knew it was time to be social again.  She had been  _ their _ first friend, so they agreed that it would make an excellent first outing for them.  

Now, approaching Ashfield House, seeing the crush of coaches and carriages as a glittering, chattering crowd of whimsically costumed socialites disembarked, as well as the music coming from within - the weather having finally taken a turn towards spring, allowing for open windows - Alice was feeling overwhelmed.  

Thomas moved so rather than sitting across from her they were side by side, softly putting an arm about her shoulders, kissing her temple.  “We will make our obeisance to our lovely hostess, let a few people toast us, enjoy a bit of Lord Ashfield’s always excellent champagne, and will slip away as quickly as we can.  Everyone seeing how beautiful you look will know why I could not wait to take you home. The rules for newlyweds are rather permissive. And what good devil would not take his chance at debauching an angel?”

As he whispered in her ear, his splendid, resonant voice growing husky, Alice felt her body flush.  Her breasts grew tender and there was the melting feeling within her that only grew more urgent with their time together, feeding off of what she craved rather than ever finding a surfeit.  

He continued, his voice slower, his hand resting on the curve of her thigh, his fingertips stroking over the lace and silk of her skirt. Now his voice was cool, with a Satanic hauteur as he teased her, “Shall I strip you of your wings,  _ mon ange _ , of your halo?  Make you sing pretty hymns of praise to my cock?  Will you pray to me to take you from your lofty place and degrade you a little?  Just a little? To make you beg and whimper for me, before I bring you screaming back to heaven?”

Alice turned and buried her face against his neck, her body aflame, “Could we go now?”

He lifted her chin with a fingertip, smiling, his eyes warm, “I love you, Alice.”  His lips barely brushed hers, and then he slipped his black half-mask over his eyes, smiling at her widely.  

There was something in that smile, in its warmth…. She knew then that it had become true.  Thomas loved her. 

As light as any actual angel she floated into the terrible press of Winnie’s party, holding her husband’s arm, her leg the last thing on her mind.

 

In the spring every year Lady Ashfield sent her children to spend a few weeks with their father and his mother in the country, and threw her annual fete.  Winnie’s fancy dress parties were famous for both the outrageousness of the costumes and the decadence that was permitted, but only upstairs, where ‘misunderstandings’ about who was hiding within those elaborate disguises allowed for all manner of interesting occurrences, many committed in complete anonymity.

Thomas had engaged in plenty of those misunderstandings over the years, returning to his rooms with his pockets stuffed with jewelry and pound notes, his body worn, and his heart sick.  This year, he planned on staying on the first floor, and even then only for the shortest time that good manners would allow. What had started as a little amorous play to ease Alice’s strange case of nerves had turned into something else.  His _ heart _ was pounding as much as his body was eager to return to bed with his wife.

She was lovely in her angel costume, even if she did not see it for herself.  The delicate wings, confections of tulle, wire, and silver thread, framed her perfectly.  The honey-gold wig that hung in curls down her back made him think of what her own hair looked like, when loosed and tangled.  

One of the maids had even wound silver and gold yarn around her cane.

“I have to admit to a little disappointment that we are not going above stairs.  I’ve heard so many rumors,” she teased. “We could pretend we were strangers and-”

“Alice!  Thomas!” Their hostess worked her way out of the stalled crowd at the doorway of the already packed ballroom.  She was draped in golden silk, with jeweled sandals that laced up her thick but nicely turned calves. A black-suited server bearing a tray of champagne followed in her wake, managing to evade the grasping hands of the other guests to serve the three of them. “How perfect you both look!”

Their glasses all lightly ‘chinged’ together.  The wine was perfectly dry and icy, exactly what Thomas needed, his velvet devil suit and the press of bodies overheating him rather quickly.  Alice, because she was nervous and loved champagne, drained her glass as well. About Winnie there could be no question, and so another round was poured as they shouted back and forth pleasantries.  

“We will have luncheon next week and we can speak properly!”  Winnie finally said to them, “I need to get to the kitchen. Something has gone wrong with the cake and I cannot have it!  But first,” she took a step back, grandly using her size and spirit to make space where none had been before.  She was dazzling, and the gown was scandalous, “what do you think of my choice for tonight?  It  _ is _ in your honors after all, Helen of Troy for my Hellenic lovers!”

“WInnie, you could go right now to the Port of London and launch every ship straight to the North Sea,” he said, kissing her cheek.

“Thomas, darling, the idea would not be to send the sailors off!  But I will take the compliment in the sense it was intended. Now, enjoy yourselves while I make sure the cook isn’t burning the Topless Tower of Illium in my kitchen.”  

The server gave them each a fresh glass before following his mistress.  “Shall we take a turn?” Thomas asked, offering Alice his arm.

Moving away from the ballroom gave them both more room to walk, though the entire house was filled with revellers, some easy to tell who they were, others moved in complete mystery.  From time to time they stopped to make small talk with some of the other guests, always at the top of their lungs. In addition to the noise of the guests Winnie had hired musicians to play in both the library and the drawing room as well as the ballroom, so the noise was deafening.

She had also given strict instructions that the newlyweds glasses were to never go dry, so soon Alice was rather delightfully tipsy, giggling with an un-Alicelike girlishness at even the silliest jokes.  Even Thomas, who had used liquor to make his life less of a misery to himself for years and therefore had a soldier’s constitution for the grape, was aware of having drunk more than his share from the Ashfield cellars.

He was talking with Henry Dowland about a new pump system he was using to good effect in some flooded property he had in Wales when he felt Alice’s hand that had been laying lightly on his forearm suddenly tighten.

“Is something the matter, darling?” he asked, wondering if she was ready to leave.

She nodded in the direction of the door to one of the quieter, side rooms.  Standing there, dressed in a very authentic Harlequin costume was William Preston.  The tights were daring as hell and left almost nothing to the imagination about the handsome young man.  It was not in his style at all. He held his black, floppy hat in one hand, allowing those damned golden curls of his to glimmer in the gaslight, the black domino he wore giving his normally so wholesome face a decidedly more interesting cast.  Almost sinister. He was leaning on the doorway watching the crowd, and when he saw the Sharpes looking at him, he raised his own glass to them with a slight, ironic nod.

“I should go speak to him.  I did not have a chance to give him my condolences about his brother before we left,” Alice said, standing on her toes so she could speak softly, sounding now wholly sober. 

“Be careful of your leg,” he said, leaning closer so she could stand down.  “Yes, very well. It is probably best if I don’t go. Give him my condolences as well.”

She made her goodbyes to Dowland and with a brief squeeze to Thomas’s hand, walked over to William, who stood up as she approached.  Thomas watched as she spoke a few words to and then William gestured into the other room, clearly asking if she wanted to sit so they could speak more quietly.  After a moment Alice nodded and entered. William turned back and looked at Thomas, then pivoted on his long legs and followed her.

Thomas finished his glass and motioned for another, and didn’t hear another word Dowland said until the man excused himself.  

Alice had not returned yet and this time he asked for a whiskey.  When the glass was placed in his hand the crowd was so dense he could not even see who handed it to him.

He wandered to the ballroom to watch the colorful dancers circling under the great chandelier.  The whiskey had an off taste to him and he wondered if it was because of all of the champagne he’d drunk or because it had been so long since he’d had spirits.  

Rather than have a second one, that one having hit him rather hard, he made his way back to the library to see if Alice had emerged yet.  He felt sweat pool in his clavicle and drip down his back and chest under the velvet. It was bloody hot and he wanted to go home.

His feet were not entirely steady as he walked, but he was far from the only one, and the advantage to the press of bodies was it hid a multitude of sins, including his sudden, tumenscent state.  

If Alice wasn’t done with her tete-a-tete with handsome William he would just have to pull her away.  Pull her away outside, into the cool air, into their waiting carriage. But he would not wait, he would take her there, as they made their way through the streets, he would sit her carefully on his lap, his cock deep in her soaking cunny and would just let the rocking and the roughness of the streets move them, while he held her perfectly still.

The room was empty.  Or was at least empty of Alice and William.  

Damn it, where was his wife?

“Sir Thomas?”  A little maid approached him.

“Yes?”  He was distracted, looking into the crowd, feeling dizzy.

“Lady Sharpe gave me a message for you.  She said that you should meet her .. upstairs,” the girl whispered the last word.  Clearly she was too young to be amongst the servants that catered to that floor. “She said the Green Room.”

Thomas nodded, stumbling slightly as he moved to the closer, back stairwell.  

Later, it would occur to him that there was no way that Alice would know about the Green Room, that it was Winnie’s favorite playroom for when they were special friends.  

When he finally made it up the stairs, invoking laughter in a coupling pair who he staggered into in the long, dimly lit hallway, it seemed as if the Green Room was miles away.  By the time he reached it, the door opened for him as if by magic, and he lurched in, finding the bed by memory alone, the room being black as the bottom of a well. 

He fell onto the mattress, which smelled strangely of the honey-scented bog-stars that had dotted the moorlands of Cumbria.  

Alice’s delicate touch was upon his chest, undoing the clasps of his costume, pushing it aside, tracing over the sodden linen covering his chest, toying with him, leaving his gasping, “Please…” His cock ached, and when that same lovely hand slid lower and caressed him through the velvet trousers he arched up into her touch.  “Mon ange,” he moaned, feeling her free him, her hand wrapping about him with assurance, squeezing him to the point of agony and then releasing him. 

He begged, his body out of all control, his mind so fogged that he forgot everything - his whereabouts, his dignity, his name.  He was only the basest need. 

Warm lips took him into their suck and darkness took him after he spent into her hot mouth, a queasiness nearly overwhelming him as he was cradled against satin covered breasts, rocked and sung to in a voice that could not be.  

_ “Let the wind blow kindly _ __  
_ In the sail of your dreams _ __  
_ And the moon light your journey _ __  
_ And bring you to me _ __  
_ We can’t live in the mountains _ __  
_ We can’t live out at sea _ __  
_ Where oh, where oh, my lover _ __  
_ Shall I come to thee?” _ __  
  


He fought, sick at heart, against the drugged sleep, but it took him anyway.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Models in this time period were referred to as mannequins.
> 
> The type of car Mr. Meadows own, that could be started without a crank, was not actually available until 1912 when Cadillac first introduced it.


	14. Omnia Vincit Odium Sui Familiaritatem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the new tags before reading this chapter.

 

The silence in the Sharpe household was a tangible thing, invisible but with a great weight and density, taking up space, skulking soundlessly from room to room, looking to find the Sharpes together so it might impose itself between them, blocking any communication, even keeping them apart physically.  Or, at least it seemed to Alice, it caused Thomas to be repelled from her in the absolute way of magnets when they are faced towards each other in the wrong way. 

It  had been so for the weeks since Winnie’s party, and try as she might Alice could not find a way to turn herself about so that her husband might be drawn back to her.

That night had lasted far longer than had been intended.  When they had been separated so she might go speak to William it had been her intention to offer their condolences and as briefly as manners would allow find out how he had been getting on since his brother’s death.  But the noise in the vhouse had made it impossible to have such a private conversation. Eventually, even after they took to another room to try and find some quiet but failed, they had parted, agreeing that perhaps they could meet for tea one day soon and catch up then.

William’s manner had been odd.  Cool and with a cynical lilt to his normally smooth, kind voice.  He explained that he was now his father’s heir, his middle brother having been disowned for refusing to leave his ballet dancer in Paris.

“You see, Alice, if you had only waited a little longer you could have been a countess rather than merely a Baronet’s lady.”

If he had struck her Alice could not have been more surprised.  Indeed she was surprised enough that she did not feel the hurt of it until they had made their goodbyes and she had gone in search of Thomas.  William had always been gentle, not simply in words but in his deeds as well, with a goodness that was clear in his gaze and smile. 

Thomas had not been where she had left him, nor in the ballroom, nor near the refreshments.  The noise and heat of the crowd, the strangeness of the costumes and masks, and the deep mark in her heart from what had been said by someone she had considered a friend, all left her feeling disoriented.  After looking for a while Alice finally found a seat near one of the open windows in the parlor, getting a little much needed air. From time to time she would gather her strength, her leg now aching rather badly, and go look for him again.  

After what felt like her third round of the all of the rooms on that floor - save the kitchen and the butler’s quarters - she admitted to herself that he could have been upstairs, certain that even in this large of a house with this many guests, she would have found him by now, particularly if he was seeking for her as well.  

The thought of him up there, of what that might imply about their marriage and their future was like a leaden weight in her mind, pushing her thoughts out of true and leaving her with a need to put her head down.

From time to time she would see a familiar face and chat for a bit.  She might have asked if anyone had seen Thomas, but the whole situation stung her pride and she could imagine the smirking or embarrassment on the part of anyone who might have to tell her they had seen him ascending to the second floor.

She admitted to herself that wherever he was, Thomas made no effort to seek her out.

Eventually, when it was very late or rather early the crowd began to thin.  There were still many revellers, and Winnie would be offering a champagne breakfast to those who chose to stay and greet the dawn.  By that time Alice was in agony. The pain had spread upwards to her hip, which had to bear the extra weight of her brace for so long, as well as the increasing ungainliness of her gait.  The raw, burned feeling of it even worked its way up her side. 

The tears that could not be stopped were hidden by her mask, thankfully.  She only hoped they would stop before they paper mache grew sodden and fell apart, revealing her humiliation to the other guests.  

It was at that point that she chose to return home alone.  

Though her sense of propriety rebelled against it she left the house without saying her goodbyes to Winnie.  Her leg would barely carry her to the carriage let alone on a search for her hostess who flitted here and there all night without rest and what was she to say about where Thomas was?  Nothing that would not fill her with shame.

The carriage was sturdy enough that the trip through the silent streets of Mayfair.  It had rained, of course, whilst she had been at Winnie’s and the soft splashes of the puddles they rolled through and the hiss of the wheels on the wet road were just loud enough to hide the sound of her weeping.  But then, she had long since learned to cry as quietly as possible in her childhood, not wishing to disturb her parent’s sleep more than could be avoided.

There was a small part of her that thought perhaps Thomas was home.  That there was a confusion between the two of them, but it was not so.

She had young Marshall, who the housekeeper had set to watch the door for the Sharpe’s return, send the carriage back with a guinea for the driver’s trouble and instructions to wait until dawn at Ashfield House for Sir Thomas.  

Deeply thankful that her father had taken it upon himself to add a graceful, wrought-iron lift to the house, Alice took herself upstairs and did not call for a maid.  She stripped the winged dress from her shoulders in disgust, tearing it on the metal of her brace. The now destroyed mask she threw into the low, smoldering fire. Heart-sick, confused, and perhaps a little worried, she took the laudanum that she normally shunned.

Her sleep was heavy and the dreams she had were terrible but in the morning, waking to find Thomas in the dressing room that connected their bedrooms.  He was in his shirt-sleeves, damp haired, and had a bit of shaving soap near his ear. 

“Where were you last night?”  She asked, leaning heavily on the door since her leg was too swollen to wear the brace and she had lurched, clutching her cane painfully.  Her hand ached and looked like a claw over the cane’s pommel.

His eyes were dreadful when he saw her, and then cold.  Rather than answering her question, he took two steps forwards, hoisting her into his arms and carrying her back to bed, “You clearly over did it last night, my dear.  I will have breakfast sent up to you and I must insist that you spend the day in repose. Mustn’t have you taking ill.”

Tucking her in like she was child, he went back to dressing, calling out as he did so,  “I have business to attend to in the city all day about the mines. I won’t be home until late,” he added, turning away from her, shrugging into a deep grey waistcoat and leaving before she could speak.

That night Thomas arrived after dinner, smelling of spirits and again evading her questions.  This time, Alice did not let herself be stopped. She had waited in his rooms for her, determined that she would be answered.  He said that he had looked for her, but when she asserted it could not be so, he then agreed, saying sardonically, “Well, I thought you were so cosy with William that I might find someone to have a private tete-a-tete with, too.”  

He shook his head at her expression, “Don’t look at me like that, Alice.  You know that I am a man who cannot bear boredom. Or being questioned. Now return to your room like a good girl, I am very fatigued today.”  His tone was light and cool and amused. He even smiled at her, but with no kindness.

Trying to get him to meet her eyes, Alice spoke with great calm but her hands twisted in her lap, “Thomas, if I have in some way-”

He put up a hand.  “Don’t trouble yourself.  Your behavior has been everything I could expect of a wife, and of you specifically.”

“Then why are you… where were you last night?”  She blurted out the last, the serenity illusory.

The look he gave her then was of disgust, “Are you really going to be one of those wives?  Who berate and question and never give their husbands a bit of freedom? Let them have a bit of fun?  I thought that an artist would have a more…  _ Bohemian _ outlook on life.”

Alice nodded once, and then left him.  The next morning breakfast was formal and chilly, and Thomas sent a message that he would be taking dinner out with his mine manager that night.  The night after he went to his club, having left before Alice woke. 

When they did see each other at luncheon the day after that they spoke of only the events of the day and when they would see each other in the large house from time to time, perhaps both of them visiting the library at the same time or once having an acquaintance from the train to Greece, they were civil and only slightly awkward. 

For the first several days Alice tried to engage him, to ask him to pose, anything.  

He was always cool, amused, and busy.

She did not paint.

If he worked upon his own projects she did not see it. 

They remained so for as long as it took for spring to turn towards summer.  Until the morning Thomas told her that he would have to leave London for a time.  

To go north.

 

Thomas had woken alone in the grey of the morning after Winnie’s fancy dress party.  For a few moments, head aching and body in pain from the knotted pose of his sleep. 

In his head, a sweet, hated, beloved voice echoed - 

_ “Let the wind blow kindly _ __   
_ In the sail of your dreams _ __   
_ And the moon light your journey _ __   
_ And bring you to me _ __   
_ We can’t live in the mountains _ __   
_ We can’t live out at sea _ __   
_ Where oh, where oh, my lover _ __   
_ Shall I come to thee?” _ __   
  


It was not sleep he woke from, he told himself, as he forced himself to remember when it would have been too easy let himself forget, to put the night before firmly into the realm of those nightmares that had plagued him for years.  That he had thought were finally, forever, behind him. That he felt guarded from by Alice’s calm breathing at his side and the warm smell of her drowsing skin. 

It was  _ not _ sleep.  He had been drugged.  

Drugged and forced into a sickening pleasure by the endless weaknesses that were the still after all of this time the essence of his being - of the body, of the mind, slave to the easy forgetfulness of opium and drink, and corrupt in even more unspeakable ways.  Unspeakable and unthinkable to anyone who was not as foul as he.

Pulling himself up, the sheet rolled off and he realized he was naked.  Deep, bruised bite marks peppered his chest, his thighs, and a smell that he had tried to forget, that of his body’s odor mixed with Lucille’s skin and her sex, and the bitterness but warm scents of the chocolate and tobacco that she exuded.

As well as of his curdled spunk.  

The filth of it, that he could feel on his also sweat cloaked body, and the drug, and monstrousness that he thought he had left behind him were too much for his stomach.  Retching into a chamber pot, and then again, and again, left Thomas feeling hollow and light enough to dress. 

Lucille had carefully… no, lovingly folded his costume, and seemed to have even wiped a cloth across his boots so they showed no dust.  She had even left him toiletry items and water that had only begun to cool. 

And a lock of hair, tied with crimson satin.

He had no doubt that a corresponding curl from his own head was now in her possession and that like some witch doctor or hoo-dooist she would use it to call him, like drawing like, the strands of hair forming yet another impossible, unsolvable knot between them.  As if the blood in their veins were not enough. 

Unable to tolerate the sensation of his skin naked to the air, he quickly scrambled back into his costume, nudity being the only thing he could consider more repugnant than letting it touch him again, and quietly left the room.  Ashamed to leave a mess for the servants, but knowing that this room would be far from the worst they would have to deal with, and that Winnie always gave bonuses to those who served at this fete, both for the extra effort and their silence.

As he knew from the past, the house was silent but for the maid of all work preparing to lay the fire in the dining room, and some bustle that could be heard from the kitchen.  Deliveries, no doubt, he thought, distracting himself with minutiae. Most of the revelers had long since gone home and those who remained would be unconscious for some time. Even Winnie would allow herself a bit more rest, but would be up in time to see to tea and reviving beverages for those who had overindulged.

He was shocked and his heart raced in his chest to learn that Alice had finally gone home so very late, no doubt so very tired and upset as well, and in great pain, and had still had the kindness to send the carriage back for him.  Under even less cruel circumstances than his seeming abandonment of her most wives would lock their door to their husbands, expecting them to expiate their guilt by a few nights at his club.

But not his Alice.  He was certain it would never even occur to her.

He closed his eyes against his headache and the day to come.

At home, in that massive monument to his family’s past ‘glory’, he tossed Lucille’s token into the already lit fire in the hall, the spring morning being foully damp and chill.  He could even see bits of the air turning to mist and steam where it came under the great wooden door into the warm house.

There was a quick flare and stink of burning hair and heavily dyed cloth.  It choked him.

He could never escape her.  Nor his past. 

But how had she found him?  No, that would not be so difficult.   Alice’s family were prominent visitors to England, and the society columns, and women’s pages - pernicious, gossipy, and full of information - would have covered their wedding as well as their comings and goings.  The days of a lady only being mentioned in the paper on the days of her birth and her death were long over. 

More importantly, he thought, how had she been freed from Ticehurst and why had no notice been sent?  And where was she today? Where had she been living and how was she keeping herself? He thought of question after question, trying to keep his mind away from the slowly returning memories of what he and Lucille had done.  

Or was it what she had done to him?

No, his body had consented so he must share the sin, as he always had.  Mustn't he? He was the man, after all. 

Thomas allowed himself a small indulgence of looking in on Alice, sleeping in the room that they normally shared, his Master bedroom having been unused since they had taken residence, but for one afternoon when he had decided to test which bed would be more comfortable for her.

She was sprawled out in an ungainly way.  Her leg must have been terrible that night, he could tell by the way she lay with it spread to one side and her hand clutching at the bottom sheet.  It was how she slept when she feared rolling over and in the morning her fingers would be cramped.

The drug had softened her features, leaving them slacker that was even normal for when she was in repose.  Too young to be trapped forever with him, with his decadence and the shadow of his sister. Too talented. Too good of a person.  

Thomas shook his head.  Even a bad person would have to deserve better than him.

The slight odor from the laudanum bottle, which he might normally not even notice, made his empty stomach roil and his hands shake for wanting to pick it up and down the whole bloody thing in one searing gulp.  Then to lay down at Alice’s side and have the sight of her be the last thing he saw in this life.

Instead he took himself to his room and called for the hottest water that could be brought.  

Starting today, he would have to find a way to create a space between himself and Alice, so that she would not be soiled by his corruption.  So that he would not need fear more than he already did Lucille. 

Who he would need to find, and send away this time to somewhere that she would never be free of.  Only then could he consider freeing Alice from him and himself from this life.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Witch Doctor" and "Hoo-dooist" are meant in period and not as an insult to either pagans or magical practitioners.


	15. Vis autem Vincit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas visits Ticehurst and Alice entertains an unexpected visitor.

Thomas had lied to Alice about his travelling north.  It was simple enough to allow her to believe that he was going all of the way to Cumbria as she knew he was forced to do every few months or more, to sign papers and check on other matters at the mine and the house.  Once, in an idle, dreamy moment in Greece that he had forgotten until the evening before, he had even said something about taking her with him one time. Not to stay in Allerdale Hall itself, which was far too dangerous anyone with Alice’s difficulties of motion, but simply to see it.  

It’s hideous beauty would fascinate her artist’s eye, as would the spare grounds and deep red earth.  Then, before the dark and the worst of memories returned, he could sweep her back away from his family’s burden.  

That would never happen now, and today he was not going north but south to Ticehurst, to find out how the devil they had allowed Lucille free, and then back to London in secret to find her and see her safely away again. 

They pulled away from the station and Thomas let his head fall back, his eyes closed.  He had left before breakfast, not being able to bear the sight of Alice that morning. The night before he had dined at home for the first time in many days, and she had worn a new gown in pale yellow, the colour he most admired on her.  For the first time since their wedding she worn the long, ruby lavillier her father had given her and it had winked and flashed red into his eyes over and over, when she unwittingly tangled her fingers in it and pulled, as she did when unhappy or nervous.

She looked so lovely, and so far away at the other end of the table, half-hidden by the arrangement of lilies and fronds and silver serving plates.  Thomas for the first time in his life intentionally slumped in his seat, drinking too much brandy with dinner instead of the excellent wine that was poured for him, trying to hide Alice the rest of the way from his gaze.

When the servants had finished clearing the plates and pouring coffee, she walked carefully, slowly, to him, her own cup shaky in her free hand, to join him at his end of the table.  Each click of the bone china and soft thud of her stick made him want to get up and aid her, but he kept his seat. He had shamed her sometimes by ‘helping’ her when she neither wished nor perhaps required his assistance.  

Alice was not the one who deserved to be shamed.

When she had taken her seat, smiling a bit nervously, Thomas had forced himself to sit upright, his head a bit sore already.  “I was hoping to speak to you about your trip tomorrow.”

Eschewing sugar or milk, Thomas drank the too hot coffee, “Of course, my dear,” he said, not looking at her.

“When we were on our- when we were in Greece you mentioned showing me Allerdale Hall.  I thought that perhaps this might be a good time. My parents are in Wales, visiting a linen making concern, and my work has… stalled for the time being.  And the weather is finally looking like spring. It would be nice to see the countryside this time of year.”

Thomas thought he would be sick.  Burning his mouth again, he still did not look at her, but rather waved his hand in the dismissive way his father had used whenever his mother had made a request of him.  “Not possible, my dear, not possible. I have work matters to attend to and cannot take the time to be your guide and guardian amongst my falling apart pile and the roughnecks miners.”

“But perhaps-”

He cut her off, speaking over her in the same lordly manner Sir James had whenever a member of his family or any female spoke on any subject other than the weather, “Besides which, it may be near to spring in London, but it is still winter in the north.”  Now he looked at her, with as much condescension as he could muster in his smile, “No pretty flowers or adorable lambs for you. If you leave London for a time, perhaps you should meet up with your parents? If you are not here when I return I’ll muddle along without you.”

Now, looking at the grey and muddy land just now sprouting green as the train left the outskirts of the city, he saw her face as he dismissed her hopeful idea.  It did not crumple, nor did she sag. Alice had spent her life learning to hide all evidence of the pain the cruelty of others and her own betraying body worked upon her.  She had nodded politely, murmured “Perhaps…” and spoke not another word to him that night.

But he knew, oh he knew how deeply he had cut her.  If she had bled her heart out onto the deep carpets and the luxuriously upholstered seat she rested upon it could be no clearer to him. 

That night, after she had gone to bed and he had sobered up, he had found himself before the door adjoining to her room.  He pressed his cheek, his palms, all of his body, to the cool, ornate wood that creaked under his weight. He closed his eyes and felt himself grow hard and ready for the first time since Lucille had reminded him of what he truly was.

The thought of his sister wilted him, and he had not slept that night for fear of dreams or visitors.  

“Go away, Alice… go away to your family and hate me.  I cannot bear to push you anymore,” he whispered as he let the train lull him to sleep.

 

The day that Thomas left the sun showed itself fully for the first time since they had returned from their wedding trip that wet spring.  Alice felt it on her before she even opened her eyes. 

When her maid had informed her that Sir Thomas had left for the train station already, Alice was ashamed of the relief she felt.  At least today she would not have the worry of embarrassing herself before him again and again. She felt quite like a little spaniel whose chosen master had grown bored of playing with it and though she followed him from room to room she could not make him pay her any mind.  

Perhaps, today, finally, she could go to her studio and at least see to the uncrating of her paintings even if she could not lift a brush.

After breakfast she made herself do so for a time. When they had first moved in Thomas had insisted on having the entire third floor, that had once been a rather eccentrically placed ballroom, made over into her studio.  “Now if there is any light to be had you will have it, ma mie,” he had said, kissing her around the words as they had surveyed the space.

Alice put the memory from her, but not before her eyes prickled and ached.

Bartelime, the youthful, red-headed butler they had hired, assisted her.  He had been brought on as much for his strength as for anything else, should he ever be required to carry her.  But he was also a careful man and with her supervision she had him open all of the crates. He placed them where she motioned gently, blushing and averting his gaze from the bound image of Thomas in the cave that was the largest of the canvases. 

Eventually all were free of their wooden caskets, save her unfinished portrait of the baronet.  

That one she could not stand the sight of - the look in his eyes that had once seemed to say, “You may know me.  I  _ may  _ allow it,” was too painful a lie now.  

She would never know him.  He would  _ not _ allow it.

“If I may say so, ma’am, these are first rate,” Bartelime said, rolling his shirt sleeves back down over his ginger dusted arms with a broad smile.  He seemed sincere. Then he schooled himself, “My apologies. It’s not my place.”

He had not grown up in service, and was of a friendly nature.  Alice rather liked both things. 

Alice smiled at him.  “Nonsense. Never apologize to an artist for admiring her work.  We are terribly vain, you know. Keep it up and you may earn yourself a raise.”

He blushed again, a red more brilliant than his hair, “Madam, I swear that I never intended, that is, I would not,” then he stopped himself.  “Shall I lay a fire in the grate, ma’am?”

“I recognised the sincerity of your words,” she said, with a small laugh.  “I won’t need a fire today, there is enough sun to make the room quite warm.  You may leave me now, I will ring if I need anything,” she added, already walking slowly in the circle of the studio space, trying to see her work with fresh eyes.  

Her leg felt good for a change, and she moved without her stick, lightly kicking her plain brown work skirt before her was she went.

Nothing spoke to her.  The still life she had worked on in their shared space in  Astypalaia - a bit of torn bread with a golden drop of oil dripping from its crust, an empty glass that had the dregs of roditys staining it’s cup, and one of Thomas’s small, chromed drafting tools - made it as far as an easel but no work was done upon it.

Alice was tired of herself.  She had never had trouble bending herself towards her painting before she was married. 

She had to do something!  This new immobility was too galling to permit, to nurture.  She looked to her largest work, mostly limned and missing but a few details.  The memory of her butler’s carrotty hair made her consider that if nothing else she could still work to find that exact shade of red for the chained god’s hair.

Using a large scrap of canvas for testing, Alice sat for an hour mixing different red, browns, yellows, and even blues, trying to find what she sought, but none were right.  Stripe after stripe dried on the cloth. Auburn, salmon, scarlet, carmine, ruby, madder, flame, blood. None were right. 

None.

Frustrated to the point of wanting to throw things, but too disciplined to do so, Alice was relieved when Bartlelime returned with a polite knock.

“Yes?”

“Lady Sharpe, you have a caller.”

He proffered a simple, but elegantly heavy calling card, naming a Lucy Chetwynde.  

Alice did not recognise the name.  “Did she say what was the purpose of her call.”

“Ma’am, she says she is a relative of Sir Thomas’s visiting from Cumbria.”

 

Thomas reveled in being able to vent his rage on a worthy target.  The current administrator of Ticehurst named Ogilvey, unlike the excellent Mr. Garrett whom he had replaced, was an officious political appointee who was clearly related to someone of import on the board of governors for the hospital.  

For the past ten minutes he had been bloviating in Thomas’s direction, his dried, purse-lipped mouth stretched to its limit by lies and prevarication as he avoided answering any of the questions that had been directed to him.

At some point all Thomas could see was that moist, tiny hole of a mouth and the sweat-sodden brush of a mustache above it and spider-like scuttle of the man’s thin, too small hands as he kept writing pointless notes.  Trying to pretend he was too busy to be bothered by such trivialities as a missing patient.

A missing, murderous patient.

As the man kept talking, Thomas stood and crossed to the windows.  Spring was in bloom in Sussex. He could see some of the more trusted inmates walking slowly across the green, watched by the sister on duty and two large attendants.  The building itself had been prepared for the new season. He could see lighter curtains fluttering in those windows that could be opened.

It was lovely.  Like the beloved country estate of a well-heeled family.

He had chosen Ticehurst for all that it was a dear expense he could not afford, because it did resemble an estate rather than a home for the mad.  Because it was reputable, clean, and the patients were known to never be mistreated but rather, there were even some cases of true recovery, though he knew in his heart that Lucille would never be one of them.

It had assuaged his guilt as much as could be done for locking her away.  For leaving her alone though they had always vowed they would be together forever.  

They had vowed it when they were so little.  And then again, when they were older. When they had first-

Thomas turned back to the man, his voice raised and arrogant, “What you are trying to not say, Mr. Ogively, is not only have you allowed my sister to escape and failed to inform me of it - all whilst taking my payments, but you have also not informed the authorities.  Rather, you have sent a few of your employees out to look in the neighborhood, and perhaps the town, doing nothing otherwise. Despite the cold nights we have had this season, and the wild dogs that I know roam these lanes. How long ago did Lucille find her freedom?”

“Mr. Sharpe-” Ogilvy started, trying to match his arrogance.  

“Sir Thomas,” he corrected, putting the man in his place.  Thomas hated acting that way, like his father, but by god if anyone had ever deserved it!

“Sir Thomas,” he said in a cowed tone, “I understand your… frustration and concern for your sister.  We had thought her well in hand but-”

Thomas crossed in three quick steps, leaning over the desk and looming over the man, “Lucille is a brilliant woman.  I do not mean the alleged cunning of the mad, but one of superior intellect and more than common education. I brought her here because I thought that a modern, more scientifically run hospital would be more wary and secure.  That was my mistake. Now answer me, for how long has she been free!”

He slammed his walking stick onto the desktop, chips of wood flying from the ornate edge.  

“Since early winter,” the man stammered out, sweat drenching his hair and detachable collar, “I don’t have an exact date.”

Thomas’s gaze went red, and he reached across the desk, grabbing the man by the throat, furious for himself, for Alice, even for Lucille, “You let a madwoman wander England at will for over five months and told no one?  Did you hope the cold nights or wild dogs or criminals might take care of the embarrassment of losing her for you, allowing you to collect my money and maintain your reputation, you fucking curr?”

He raised his stick again, his hand shaking.

His signet ring glinted at him in the gaslight of the man’s office, and for a moment he did not see his hand, but rather his father’s.  The stick raise, to fall again and again, upon his mother, upon Lucille, upon him….

With a sound of disgust Thomas threw the man back into his chair and stormed out of the office, barking to the terrified amanuensis that he would see his sister’s effects.  Now.

 

“I apologize for visiting unannounced, Lady Sharpe,” Miss Chetwynde said, taking the preferred tea cup in a neatly gloved hand.  “But my trip to London was rather last minute and brief, and I thought it would be even ruder to not come and offer my congratulations to Thomas and his new bride.”

The woman was beautiful.  Tall and dark, magnificently so, like one of the Pre-Raphaelite beauties that she so admired.  Indeed this one would give even the regal Jane Morris a run for her money. She was very much of her type, with almost too pale skin and a wave to her brunette hair, and a way of looking at everything that spoke to a sense of personal superiority and slight amusement.  

Thought her hair was dressed in a modern cut, and her calling card had been in style, her dress was rather old fashioned, if beautiful and no doubt very expensive, made of fine spun merino that was maybe a trifle warm for the spring weather that day.  Then, Alice reasoned, the latest fashions probably took quite a bit longer to make their way to the north.

She called Thomas by his first name, with no honorific.  They must have been quite well acquainted. Alice was inclined to dislike her.

Yet, as well, Alice longed to paint her from the moment she had seen her sitting the library, bent over a volume of Gibbons.

“Not at all.  I am only sorry that you missed Thomas.  His trip north was also rather last minute.  Cake?”

“No thank you, bread if you please.”

Alice took up the silver tongs and placed a thin, buttered slice on a plate for her guest.  

“Oh, have you cut yourself?” Miss Chetwynde asked in startled tone.

Even though she had thought her hands fully scrubbed, there was a streak of brilliant red paint across her wrist bone.  She laughed, embarrassed, “Oh, no, it’s paint. I was in my studio when you arrived, which is why it took me so long to join you.  I had made rather a mess of myself.”

“Yes, I had heard you paint…” she said the last word with a small lift.  Scornful of what she clearly saw as just another young lady’s ‘accomplishment.’

“I do.  That was how I came to meet Thomas, actually,” Alice said, tartly.  “He did me the honor of modelling for me.”

Miss Chetwynde’s hand shook a bit, but she put down her cup with a ringing noise before spilling a drop, “I am quite surprised.  Thomas was never vain, for all of his good looks. There were portraits done, of course, of all of the Sharpes, but even when he was the littlest, most beautiful boy Thomas hated to sit still for them.”

Alice leaned forward, her eagerness to know about her husband overshadowing her dislike, “You’ve known Thomas that long?  Are you perhaps related? I must say I notice a very strong resemblance.”

For a moment Miss Chetwynde was silent, a fond look on her face as she stared at nothing or perhaps the past, then she smiled dismissively, “Oh, I shouldn’t be surprised if we were.  There are only a few families of real prominence in our part of the country and they have all intermarried again and again over the centuries. Families, how odd they are…”

Alice settled back into her seat, her leg aching a bit, and imagined the grand Miss Chetwynde as as a goddess.  Athena perhaps. No, for though she was very straight backed there was a knowing quality to her dark blue eyes that belied her being a Miss.  She was not a virginal goddess, even if it was easy to imagine her as Artemis setting her hounds to rip Actaeon to pieces. 

No, not a goddess.  One of the Bacchae, the savage priestesses who followed Dionysus through the wilderness.  The chiefest of the Bacchae, demanding all be sacrificed to her dangerous god. 

“...do you not agree, Lady Sharpe?”  

Alice smiled, having not heard a word, “Yes, of course.  And please, you must call me Alice.”

Thomas was in a foul mood, having missed the last train to London.  He took a room in a small hotel near the station so as to be sure not to miss the first one in the morning.  After forcing himself to finish a rather grim meal and to not go to the railway public house for a whiskey before retiring, he sat on the tidy little bed in his room and looked through Lucille’s things.

She had been allowed to pursue her interest in entomology.  She was an expert with the killing jar, and at mounting specimens, often presenting her work as gifts to those other inmates and members of the staff who managed to not disgust her.  She had even arranged through one of the doctors to sell some of her work, amassing a small cash of funds for the day she hoped to be ‘cured.’

It was kept for her by that same doctor, Dr. Holly.  At some point he must have shown her where in his office it was, as it went missing along with her.  Holly seemed a sincere enough fellow, clearly horrified by Ogilvy's choice to keep Lucille’s disappearance quiet, but not brave enough, or willing to risk his position, to do anything to contradict his actions.  He had also been unwilling to show Thomas his notes regarding her and her treatment.

She’d simply been too much for them.  Even thinking to burn most of her belongings before she left.  All but the few letters he had forced himself to write her over the years.  Those had been neatly stacked on her desk. 

Unopened.

Covered in lip marks.

In the morning, when he was checking out, he was surprised to see Holly in the lobby of his hotel.  “Sir Thomas,” the man said, offering his hand, “I spent a dreadful night. I still cannot show you my notes regarding your sister, but I do think we should talk further.  I am afraid that I-”

His shoulders sagged, “I am just afraid.  Not of Ogilvy, as you might assume, but of Lucille.”

Thomas frowned in sympathy, “You should be.  Let me buy you breakfast. I can take a later train.”

 

That night, after Miss Chetwynde left with many good wishes to Alice and Thomas, and a promise that they would visit her in Cumbria, Alice found it impossible to return to her studio.  She’d had a few invitations for that night, including one from Winnie, who very much wanted her to come to dinner so she could approve of her newest ‘friend,’ but no energy or desire to leave the house.  Rather, she ate alone, picking at her cutlet and not even enjoying the trifle for dessert. 

At least she was tired enough to sleep.  But even that rest was unpleasant. Her dreams were a hot tangle.  Back at Winnie’s, upstairs, Thomas was kissing her neck and then bit her deeply.  While she screamed he worried her flesh away and then shoved her from his lap and watched cooly as she tried to crawl away, slipping in the blood that poured from her neck.

When she reached the door to the room, to try and call for help, she felt him grab her brace and pull her back as her hands scrabbled for purchase.

With a shout, Alice sat up in bed.  

It was not the dream that had woken her, but a sound in the house of something being broken.  Then again, from upstairs. Her studio.

Alice was up and in her brace in seconds, afraid that something had been left in a precarious position or that a window was left open and the wind from the storm that seemed to be on its way had blown over her easel or the one of her canvases.

Anxiety overcame her stiffness and she was up the stairs quickly for her, though she found her cane ringing more sharply than was normal on the floor.  One of the windows was open, and the room was cold and filled with wind and the smell of rain, but that was not the source of the breaking sound. 

Miss Chetwynde, dressed in a man’s black suit and boots, stood in the middle of her studio.  She had lit a candle and was holding one of the paintings before it, studying the work. Alice knew immediately, based on the size of the canvas, that it was her unfinished portrait of Thomas.  The breaking sound had been the destruction of her paintings. All of them.

Save two.  The bound god and the portrait.

The sight of the ruin froze Alice in place, aghast and disbelieving at once.

Lucille carefully set the portrait aside, lovingly touching the paint, and pulled a revolver from her jacket.  

“You are a real artist, are you not, Alice?  You have the gift. The eye. You see it, don’t you?”  Her eyes at first were dazzled by the painting, but quickly went cold, “You see the truth of his beauty.  Not just the handsome facade that everyone sees, like those sluts who pay him to let them defile him. You see his perfection.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jane Morris was the model/muse/mistress of both Pre=Raphaelite painters, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris, who she later married. I suspect that her tall, dark, sullen beauty was part of the inspiration for Lucille Sharpe's look. You can see her here - http://www.victorian-era.org/jane-morris-english-artists-model-biography.html


	16. Calliditatem vincit Cura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas returns home but Alice is no longer there.

Charing Cross station was it’s usual crush that morning, which for the first time in well over a week threatened sunlight and pleasant weather.  The crystal blue of the sky was just barely visible through the great, arching glass ceiling as William Preston exited his train car, nearly forgetting his hat and then his valise.  It was almost too warm for his gloves, but he pulled them on despite it. He could see Winnie waiting for him on the platform, rather than within the station or even more properly in her carriage.

She saw him, giving him a cool smile and a small nod, but there was a flush on her soft, round face that proved she was just as eager for his return to her as he was.

Winnie.  Winnie, with her Venus face and her deliciously round form, who would have thought one day it would be he that Winnie waited for?  

It could not be forever.  She was devoted to her children and would never divorce, and he had dynastic responsibilities that meant he would need to marry one day.  But oh, would it not be lovely if it could be? The thought of waking up beside Winnie each day, of seeing her smile across the breakfast table, as well as other less gentlemanly thoughts made him grin widely and calculate how long it would take to return to his rooms.  

Thank god, he had insisted on maintaining his own residence rather than moving into Borwith House when his father had named him heir after Robert’s… death.  William could still not bear to think about what had happened to his eldest brother, to consider it too carefully. Not after what had passed between them the last time they had met at the opera the night before it had happened.  Not when his fate had been so gruesome.

Yes, Robert had been a cad and vulgar, and had deserved worse than what William had given him for speaking to any lady so, but he still felt a sour guilt over that being the last time he had seen him alive.  

Skirting carefully around rushing, dark suited men about their business, more sedate ladies dressed in lovely colours and rather astonishing hats, most visiting London for a day of shopping or social calls, and straggling, tired families with too many children and too many bags, he made his way towards his mistress.  How he wished he could greet her with a kiss! When the masses parted and he could see her again, looking very smart in a walking dress of muted blue with pale green lace, Winnie looked excited, the cool smile gone, and she anxiously motioned for him to hurry to her side.

“Mrs. Ashfield, what a lovely surpr-,” William started, taking her white gloved hand in his brown covered one, trying to preserve the illusion of propriety between them.

“Never mind that, darling,” she whispered rather loudly to him, knowing they would not be heard over the susurrus produced by the busy, indifferent crowd.  “I just saw Alice Sharpe. It is the perfect time for you to make your apologies to her.”

She pointed towards one of the other platforms, where he could just barely see Alice’s slowly moving form.  For a moment he thought she was leaning on Sir Thomas’s arm, but then he noted the small hat and greater mass of curls and realized she was accompanied by a woman of astonishing height and bearing, a veritable valkyrie.  

William hesitated for a moment.  He had owed Alice the most abject of apologies since the night of Winnie’s famous costume party.  He had been drunk and bitter, hating his new role as his father’s heir and the end of his own dreams for himself when he had seen Alice and Thomas.  Then his jealousy, the guilt about humiliating Robert over her, deserved though it may have been, and the brandy he had been drinking all day got the better of him and he unforgivably took all of it out on Alice who had only wanted to offer him their condolences and her continued friendship.

The next morning he had woken on one of the couches in the Ashfield library, badly hungover and feeling nothing but sorry for himself.  Winnie had been standing over him, hands on her hips, her magnificent bosom nearly spilling forth from her golden goddess costume, her expression annoyed.  “I’d say I’m disappointed in you, William, but that would make me feel old enough to be your mother. Come have some kedgeree and toast, and drink a pot of coffee.  Then maybe we can talk about your atrocious rudeness last night.”

Over breakfast, in hushed tones, whilst being periodically interrupted by other, late leaving guests, WIlliam had poured his heart out to Winnie, who nodded and patted his hand and shook her head at him depending on which part of the story was being told.  Then, when they were alone, she took his hand and led him to her massive, luxurious bed.

With a firm nod to her, and a surreptitious kiss to her cheek, he made his way swiftly through the mass again, hoping to reach Alice and her companion before they boarded.  

 

Winnie watched William fording the crowd like a boat on a fast moving river, rather proud of him.  In truth, Alice would not only be happy to forgive him, but she would certainly be polite enough to simply pretend that nothing untoward had occurred between them, but it did not keep the situation from being damned uncomfortable for her young man.

It took her some effort to not sigh with girlish pleasure.  Girlhood was long behind her, but the sweet, innocent feelings she’d had then were not as gone as one might assume, considering both her age and her experience.  William was so lovely, one of the most beautiful men she had ever known with his dark blonde curls and wide blue eyes, he was nearly as devastating as Thomas, but with no darkness or stain upon him. 

And he was eager!  So marvelously, flatteringly eager, wooing her as much as bedding her.  If she were not careful she would find her heart badly compromised. 

Winnie would not be careful.

Eventually, the crowd thinned as they spilled into the train upon the platform, and she could see William standing, holding his hat, staring into an open car door.  Even from that distance she could tell by the set of his shoulders beneath his spring travelling coat, as well as the way he fidgeted with his brim that he was confounded in some way.  He remained standing there, looking within the train until it rolled out of the station and the sight of him was briefly lost in the smoke puffing from the wheels.

He came striding out of it, taking her arms and picking up his dropped valise.  “We need to find Thomas, I fear that something is dreadfully wrong.”

 

Thomas flagged down a Unic motor cab just outside of London Bridge station.  Normally he prefered a horse drawn hack, but he was desperate to be home. What Eustace Holly had told him the night before about Lucille.  Not simply her actions whilst at Ticehurst, the occasional acts of violence and then of kindness towards other patients, some of whom became her disciples, for she had the same dark magnetism that was as much a Sharpe trait as malice.

Holly also educated him as to her state of mind and fixation on him, which he was ever more horrifically aware of, as well as of her plans for the two of them and what the doctor believed she was capable of to achieve her ends.  Of those capabilities Thomas had no doubt. He had seen them with his own eyes, been painted in the blood of them as a child.

He thought of Madeline Landsdowne.  Of the details that the papers had not included of her ghastly murder and those that gossip had filled in.  Or Robert Preston and his gruesome end. He thought of Alice in their vast, elegant home, sleeping alone on the second floor, or working by herself in the attic studio.  Where flights of stairs that she could traverse only with difficulty separated her from any help. Where her soft voice could disappear into the air…

That morning he’d sent a wire to the house begging Alice to stay in company, and another to Mr. and Mrs. Meadows asking them to pay a call on their daughter, that he would be home in the late afternoon and he wished to speak to all of them.  

Pulling the brim of his hat against the strangely bright day that was contributing to his sick headache, made worse by the exhaust smell and clatter of the auto, Thomas bit the thin skin on the back of his hand, using that pain to clear his thoughts.  He longed to turn his head and see Alice beside him, her thoughtful gaze upon him, and that the last weeks had been a nightmare brought on by his guilt at deceiving her as to his true nature. But no, it was all true and he must now face that which he had long since closed his eyes to with bravery and no hope for his future.

He was committed to his path.  He would tell them, all of them, the rest of the truths about his foul, sordid life.  Of course he would offer Alice her freedom immediately, under any terms she would want, as long as she left, went with her parents.  Maybe even all of the way back to America, if he could persuade her to go.

Even if it took fear and disgust to drive her away he was willing.  Let Alice hate him, offer him bitterness, strike him or even worse. Whatever it took to take her safely from his sphere and Lucille’s malice and blade.

It seemed to take forever to reach home, and indeed, he had to cross not only the river and a good part of the city to reach Kensington, but the roads were especially busy that day.  The fierce sun was finally beginning to disappear behind the city and he felt better than he had since he had woken covered in the marks of Lucille’s possession. Finally he would do the right thing for Alice, then he could go after his sister, going to hell in his own, good time.

It was nearly sunset when the cab finally turned on to Hillsleigh Road.  The Meadows’ extravagant carriage was not in front of the house, but rather he saw Winnie’s cunning little Phaeton with her matched pair of bays parked at the kerb.  

Bartlelime, the new butler whose hiring he could barely recall, met him at the door, “Sir Thomas, welcome home,” he said, the faintest touch of Yorkshire still clinging to his tongue, though he had claimed to have lived in the London for most of his life. He claimed it, though there was no way to prove it so.  Thomas narrowed his eyes at the pleasant, ginger haired man, who seemed not to notice. “Lady Ashdown and Viscount Preston are waiting in the drawing room.”

It took Thomas a moment to recall that William Preston was now his father’s heir.  What the devil was he doing with Winnie, and for that matter what were either of them doing in his home?  “Is Lady Sharpe with them?”

The butler looked a bit uncertain for a moment, but then regained the calm demeanor his position required.  “No, Sir Thomas. Lady Sharpe has been out since very early.”

“Early?” He handed his coat and hat to Bartlelime, walking towards the elegant drawing room, done in the modern style with light wicker, pale damasks, and a preponderance of ferns that Alice especially loved.  “Is she visiting her parents? Or did they come for her?”

“No, sir.  She was with a friend, I believe.  Lady Sharpe left not long before your guests arrived.”

Thomas was startled.  That meant they had been waiting all day.  “Do not go far. I will be having need of you,” he said to the butler over his shoulder as he went to find his unwanted guests and have them on their way so he could find his wife.

Winnie was seated by a long since emptied tea tray, her white gloved fingers drumming on the arm of the settee.  “Thomas! Thank goodness you’ve finally returned.”

William was looking out of the window, his frame tense, he turned at Winnie’s voice and his blue eyes met Thomas’s.  For a moment neither moved nor spoke. It had been apparent to everyone but Alice that young Preston’s feelings for her had run deeper than she had thought and seeing the man who probably should have married his wife in his home made Thomas a little melancholy.  They would have made a fine couple.

“Winnie, what in the world?  Where is Alice?” he asked whilst nodding, “Preston.”

“I… that is what we’ve come about,” Winnie sounded worried. “William?”  She stood and in a few strides Preston was at her side, taking her hand.

Well.  That was a development, Thomas thought.  He looked at the younger man’s head bowed comfortingly over Winnie’s, his thumb stroking the back of her knuckles where they held hands and at the soft look on their faces and a deep happiness for his friend was a sweet if brief relief from his growing anxiety.

Preston looked up at him, his eyes troubled, “I was returning from a visit to a friend from school this morning.  Lady Ashfield was at Charing Cross on some business of her own and was kind enough to offer me ride home.” Thomas found it said everything he needed to know about the safety of Winnie’s heart in William’s hands that the young man was trying to protect her reputation to her own former lover, a notorious rogue.  “As we were leaving the station she saw Al-, apologies, she saw Lady Sharpe. As you know I was less than a gentleman to Lady Sharpe at Lady Ashdown’s last soiree and have long owed her an apology for it.”

Thomas did not know. He found his fingers ached from how tightly his hands were gripped into fists. He had been far too self involved after that night, had distanced himself too completely from her, for Alice to be able to confide in him about anything.  Another wound he had inflicted, another hurt he had not comforted her over. Yet, rather than admit to it, he simply inclined his head for William to continue.

“She was headed towards one of the trains, so I hurried through the crowd in hopes of catching her before she boarded.  When I did catch her she was…” William sat, his mind far away, recalling, “she was strange. Her voice was slow and she seemed to forget herself as we spoke, and once she swayed slightly.  Only her companion’s ready arm kept her from falling beneath the train, I think. I know from past conversations that Alice does not like to take medication for her discomfort unless it is very, very bad.  She said it made her too unaware, more likely to fall, but I would swear that was the state she was in.”

“Companion?  Was she not with her family?”  At first Thomas’s heart had soared, thinking that Alice was gone, far and safe, having tired of his cruelty, perhaps visiting the country with her parents who would have taken her away if she requested.  But William would have mentioned if he had seen the Meadows as well. 

“No.  This is what-” William squeezed his hands together, “at first I thought you were with her, when I looked at her through the crowd.  But it was a woman. I did not know her, but she looked… Thomas she looked  _ just _ like you - tall, dark haired, pale, clearly very well born.  Alice did not introduce us, and she was clearly worried they would miss their train.  She was a perfect lady, but there was something wrong with her. I am not a man given to flights of fancy, but something about her was  _ wrong _ .  And when she took Alice’s hand to lead her into the car I could see her flinch, even in her confused state she could sense that wrongness as well.”

The room had no air.  Why was his house so cold?  Darkness crawled into the corners of Thomas’s sight and he swayed, grasping the back of a tall chair.  

“Thomas!” Winnie cried out, coming to his side to offer her arm, William shortly behind her. 

“Did you note where the train was heading?”  

William helped him sit, “Cumbria.”

Where else would Lucille go?  Thomas thought. In all of her letters she had only ever wanted him to take her home.  

A cold, white rage burned through him like phosphorus, bracing as a glass of gin.  Thomas surged to his feet, shouting, “Bartlelime!” Now certain that his half-formed suspicions were actually truths.  He would beat the truth from the butler and no dreadful memories of his father’s raised hand would stay him from violence this time.

The man did not answer.  He had sensed danger on the wind and had fled the house, a hound following his beloved mistress north.

 

Alice had grown sick on the train.  She had tried to warn Miss Chetwynde that it would happen should she have too much laudanum at one time.  But the woman, who was surely not a Miss Chetwynde but for whom she had no other name, had poured out a large share from an old bottle of Stickney and Poor's brand and made it plain that her choice was no choice at all.

She could drink or she could die.  She would die, as would her servants and then her parents.  Miss Chetwynde’s mad eyes were honest as well. She would do all she threatened or die herself, attempting it.

No matter what Alice might have felt when Thomas had turned from her, that she could die of the pain of it, she did not want to do so.  She longed for life. The life she had come so close to having with her husband and she refused to give up the idea that it could still happen.  Nor would she ever put others to a risk she could spare them from. 

She drank and tried to keep her gorge from rising.

After that her memories were unclear and perhaps not real.  She had a vague sense that she had gone from her studio, where bits of broken frame scratched at her one bare foot and snagged on the heavy stocking she wore on the other.  That someone dressed her, pulling her stays too tight so her breaths were shallow and painful. They strapped her back into her brace with such vigour that soon she could feel nothing but the heavy drag of the metal and a distant pain in her toes that she found mattered not at all.

Nothing seemed to matter where she sat behind a cloud, the world and her caring for it muffled and seeming far away.

Someone had gotten her down the stairs, the many, many stairs in her house.  Her and Thomas’s house that was empty all of the time even when they both were at home.  At the sidewalk a carriage, with black horses that should pull a hearse and a funereal darkness within, waited for them.  As she balanced unsteadily against the gate for Miss Chetwynde could not bear the sound of her stick striking the ground and had thrown it into the fire, Alice could see things being loaded.  

When she was bundled into it, Miss Chetwynde stood at the side before entering and was embraced by someone… someone whose hair burned in the darkness but was still not the right red.  The red Alice feared she would never find. They kissed and Alice felt tears in her eyes but not in her drug-swathed heart. Why should she cry at a kiss? Were not kisses a good thing?

The door slammed and she found Miss Chetwynde bundled in next to her.  The woman was smiling at whomever had closed them in, but when the carriage started forward she reached hastily into her reticule, pulling out a small handkerchief, neatly embroidered with surprisingly life-like moths whose wings Alice could see fluttering and trying to pull free of the cloth.

Miss Chetwynde wiped at her mouth over and over, roughly, her eyes dead, until it seemed as if she would make herself bleed, then she spat hard, almost to gagging, as if to expunge any touch of the kiss she just endured.  “The things one does for love,” she muttered more to herself than to Alice.

When they arrived at the station, Alice vomited from the laudanum and the jolting.  Some of it landed on Miss Chetwynde’s neat, pointed toe shoes. She shrank back away from the woman, cold and certain she would be struck, her head pounded.  But instead she received an unexpectedly kind pat upon her hand, “Never mind, little Alice. I have nursed the ill before. They cannot be blamed for the things they do.”  

Then she pulled forth the Stickney and Poor's and made her sip from the bottle.  Now and then she prodded Alice with the straight razor she had taken from her pocket but had not unfolded yet.  They were running late for the train and there was no time for niceties now. The jostling of the crowds, the heat and the stench of the hot metal and too many bodies made Alice fear it would happen again, but she held herself proud, and leaned hard upon Miss Chetwynde and did not shame herself before strangers.  

At one point she thought she saw William Preston, kind and concerned and speaking to her as if from another room.  But that could not be so. He hated her now. Just as Thomas did.

On the train she slept, her dreams miserable but thankly not ones she could remember when she woke, save for the sound of her mother’s voice in too close in her ear, so it was distorted, urging her to do something but she could not hear what.  

Once or twice Miss Chetwynde woke her to sip water or more of the drug, the taste of it making her ill and yet finding herself wanting more.  They must have travelled far, to whatever impossible place a creature like her kidnapper would come from. A place that was still cold, despite the spring.  Or perhaps it was the laudanum. Alice had had that experience before, of it making her feel like she was under ice.

The station where they disembarked was dark and quiet, with few people mostly also quiet and dark, so different from the bustle and controlled madness of London.  This was a place of stillness, where the madness had no control at all. Another carriage, this not so fine as the one they had taken before was hired, and they took to bad, rutted roads after their bags were loaded.

Eventually, for time meant little to Alice, they stopped before a vast gate that seemed to guard nothing.  Miss Chetwynde stepped down and pulled out a great ring of keys to unlock it. The grounds were thinly covered in weak, spring grasses, and at the distance was a building.  Or perhaps a growth, cancerously rising from the desolate earth.

When they reached the house, for a house it was, Miss Chetwynde had the driver take their bags no further than the wide porch whilst she helped Alice down, her voice comforting for his benefit, “Now, dear sister, soon we will get you to bed and then you’ll feel better.”

Once he was gone and they were in the house, she let Alice go and she fell.  It took her so long to reach the floorboards, that jarred her bones so they felt they might burst from her skin.  But oh, oh the ground!

From between the ancient oak slats the earth bled, welling a deep red that stained her hands.

Alice held them up to the faint light that came through the hole in the roof, high, so high above.

The red.

The red she sought.

The red she needed.

“Thank you,” she wept, holding her hands to her face, smearing herself.  “Thank you, thank you,” she repeated, over and over, as Miss Chetwynde went about her business of settling them in.

  
  
  



	17. Triumphi Spe Mala

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas races to Cumbria, while Alice finds out more about Allerdale and his past.

Alice woke in darkness, her body shuddering with great cold.  It assaulted her from both without where her breath hung like curtains of gauze on the air, and from within where she had been parched and then sickened by the drug that she knew she had taken too much of.  Having not eaten or drunk anything but the Stickney and Poor’s and a few sips of water for more than a day also left her head hurting terribly. 

Miss Chetwynde bustled into the room a moment later, carrying a tea tray.  “I thought you would sleep the whole day away,” she chided gently. “If you are to get any painting done before the light fades I suggest you finish your tea quickly.”

Placing the tray neatly down with the barest clatter of the china, she crossed the room and pulled open a pair of sagging, sun-bleached curtains.  Alice put a hand up to shade her eyes and took in her surroundings. 

“It stormed most of the night, but you slept through it as did I.  How fortunate. I have always slept rather poorly, but last night, being home for the first time in so long…” she sighed, her face glowing with real happiness at being back in such a terrible place.  “I slept and dreamt of how it would be here, now that Allerdale can finally be restored. Finally be made whole again, the home of the Sharpes as it was of old.”

They were in what must have been the nursery, based on the rather frightening, faded mural upon the walls, seeming to show a horrific fairytale, where two children experienced horror after horror.  The work was good in its storybook fashion, Alice could not help but note, but the contrast between the cherubic, grinning faces of the witches and trolls and the drawn, frightened looks of the children was jarring.  

Or perhaps it was only her drug and sleep muddled mind, confusing what she saw.

All within the room was ill used and worn.

The bed she had woken in was meant for a child so she had slept curled up in her chemise and stockings, both still stained with evidence of her illness the day before.  Or had it been more than a day? She could not be sure. When she attempted to straighten her legs to sit up, she found that the left one would not unbend, her knee was so swollen it could not.  The pain made her clasp it and hug it to her chest, pushing her fist against her lips to restrain her howls. .

“You did take quite the tumble when we stepped out of the lift, poor thing.  I’ll leave you for a moment to compose yourself and then you will start to work.”  Miss Chetwynde walked to the bed and bent over so her face was very close to Alice’s.  She gently stroked a bit of hair back from where it clung to her tear-dampened face. “If you cannot work to finish the paintings, then I have no reason to keep you, Lady Sharpe.”

She said the last as if the word was edged and it had turned on her, cutting her mouth.  Then she left.

With a few moments of privacy Alice was able to bring her weeping to a stop, absorbing the pain back into herself, to the place within her that stored all that caused her hurt.  It took her several attempts, but eventually she was able to roll out of the bed, which was thankfully low having been meant for little legs, and then pull herself over to the miniature table on which the tea was set.  She concentrated on acting rather than thinking, for thinking hurt, for thinking made her remember things that Miss Chetwynde had said to her as they travelled. Strange, cruel things. 

Mad things.

Things regarding Thomas.  Things about their past together.  About their growing up together, falling in love and of the loss of the dreams that they had once shared for a life together that had been stolen from them by the viciousness of the Sharpe family.

Intimate things that had the ring of truth to them and made her ache for that young Thomas who had lost his hopes and love and had instead settled into a life of using himself as his only commodity.  Until he had finally sold himself to her, taking her broken self in the place of the graceful, beautiful girl he had once wanted. 

But now  _ they _ would be together.  Finally, as  _ they _ were meant to be.

As they had been at Winnie’s soiree…

When Alice thought of the icy triumph in the woman’s little mouth and haughty voice as she described in detail what had gone on between her and Alice’s husband, of how she had ‘won him back,’ she was nearly ill again.

The tea was bitter and herbal, but it cleared her mind even as her empty, sore stomach clenched about it and wished to rebel.  Alice forced herself to keep it in place, and wished for more water. Perhaps she could persuade Miss Chetwynde to give her some to soak her brushes in and she might sip some before using it for such.

The woman was clearly mad.  She had done terrible things, if she was to be believed, which Alice did.  Terrible things had been done to Madeline Landsdowne, and William’s brother, and to others who she did not know but who had suffered and died for Lucy Chetwynde’s scheme to be united with her love and Alice’s funds.  

It was certain she would do to as much to Alice, certain that her crippled state and the vast wealth she had been raised with made her so weak that she could not only confess her sins with no fear of repercussions, but would be able to easily dispatch her even after forewarning her that she was for the knife.

Her leg hurt so badly now that Alice wondered if it had been reinjured in her newest fall, since it had been unbraced at the time.  Wondered if it would require another surgery. She welcomed the agony, knowing that it made her far stronger than anyone understood.  

Except for Thomas.  

Alice finished the tea and started the long journey of pulling herself to the door at the far end of the nursery, pulling herself along the dirty floor, to call Miss Chetwynde.  She was ready to work. To do what she needed to live. To try and live long enough to find a way to put paid to Lucy Chetwynde for what she had done to her.

 

The rush to the station was little but a blur for Thomas, after finding the butler gone he had sent his valet to the Meadows’ with a hastily scrawled, no doubt mad-sounding note, grasped the wallet of money kept in the house for emergencies and accepted William’s offer to accompany him north.

“Should we not contact the police as well?” Winnie asked, leaning into to William’s side and taking Thomas’s hand as they sat in her carriage.  

“Yes, of course.  They can wire Cumbria, the local constable will reach there long before we shall,” William said. 

Thomas nodded, distracted.  His body was tense, leaning forward, as if he could will the horses to be swifter, the road clearer.  Thank god they had time, barely time, to reach the station before the last train would leave.

If only the traffic thinned.  He had ever loved London for being everything that Allerdale and Crimson Peak had not been - bustling, bright, modern - and now he hated it.  He hated every hack and walker, every horse, every buggy, every modern motor car, everything that came between him and the train. He hated them until he ached.

He hated them more than he hated himself.

“Winnie, will you go?  After we are at the station?” he asked his friend, though he doubted it would do much good.  The small town nearest to his estate was quiet and had no proper constable at all. The only reason it had a train depot was for the clay shipments from his mine. There was just an old prison-box where local criminals would be held until the police would come from Carlisle to fetch them for court.  But if the message was sent to the post office, as well as to the Carlisle police...

Maybe.  Maybe it would do some good.  

“What should I tell them?” she asked, her voice soft and questioning.

“The truth,” Thomas answered in disgust of his many lies.  “That the local mine owner’s mad, murderous sister has kidnapped his wife because he has never been man enough to deal with her.  To be honest with either of them.”

There was silence and he waited for more questions, but none came.  He could feel them looking at him, but with nothing but concern and the weight of it made him humble.

As they reached the station, he heard William whisper to Winnie, “You do not mind?  Because it is Alice, and I once...?”

She pulled off her glove and placed her pale fingers against his lips, “I only mind if you let anything happen to you.  Come home safe.” She reached over then and squeezed Thomas’s fingers. “All three of you.”

Thomas gave her a nod that was another lie.  He would do anything to be certain that William came back, and for Alice there was nothing he was not capable of.  But for himself, he no longer cared. He had to end this, and whatever price he was called on to pay, he would pay gladly.

 

When she had made it from the nursery, Alice had found Miss Chetwynde waiting for her, dressed in a heavy, blue velvet gown, and pushing an old fashioned wheeled chair, made of iron and draped in fabric that matched that equally old dress.  

“This belonged to our mother.  She was also a cripple. Though not always, that was a sort of wedding gift from father for giving him a daughter first rather than a son.  Here,” she bent over and grasped Alice beneath her arms, the both of them briefly working together to wrestle her into the seat and started to push it towards the lift she could barely recall from the night before.  “That’s better, isn’t it? I remember when father brought it home for her, it was the only thoughtful gift he ever purchased for her, but I imagine it was because he loathed the sound of her stick on the floors as much as Thomas and I did.  For different reasons, of course.”

Something about all of that.

“I thought Thomas was your-”

They reached the lift and it opened with a terrible shriek of metal, and lurched in a terrifying way before swaying in its bracket and then lowering slowly.  The house had a fetid smell, that of unaired rooms suddenly opened, of the mold and rotten wood from the broken roof that let water fall in a steady stream down to the floor, of those things found in the deep of the earth.  

Alice thought of what Thomas had told her of the mine beneath the house, how it was slowly eroding the the very ground upon which it stood, and that he hoped that some night when the works were quiet and the men had gone it would be swallowed whole.  Leaving naught but a sanguineous circle of raw earth and silence. 

“Thomas is my everything.  As I will be to him, soon. My love, my dearest companion and friend, my brother, the other half of me.  Ours is a love that someone like you could never understand.” She stopped and seemed to think. “Perhaps, maybe, just a little.  That painting of the god. There is madness in that. Madness and wanting and need. Here we are!” 

The lift stopped more gently than it had started, leaving them on the third floor.  “The best light is here, I believe. I am afraid it is going to be a gloomy day. We are due for another storm.  A bad one. Spring in the north,” she said with a rueful tone.

The long hallway was made of even darker wood than the rest of the sepuchulric house.  Above them elaborate, medieval-esque arches with pointed spikes threatened. It ended in a great picture window, showing the emptiness of the hills around them and the red ground covered in thin gorse.  A brilliant bit of sunlight found its way between mountains of clouds.

To augment it, branches of candles had been lit.  Alice’s two remaining canvases sat on easels, and her tools and paints had been laid out with great care, and a small stool with a dirty, tapestry patterned cushion with an image of a princess and a unicorn barely visible beneath the stains, so to make it just high enough for her to work.  Nothing had been left wanting. 

“Finish the portrait first,” she was ordered.

“I-”

She went to slide onto the stool and her feet went from under her on the floor which was slick and gleaming with fresh, heavily smoothed wax.  

Alice could not stand upon it, not even if she used a bit of wood from one of the easels for help.

“Upsidaisy,” Miss Chetwynde - no, Miss Sharpe - murmured softly, helping her up.  “I will leave you to it. I shall return with tea for you at lunch time. You must keep up your strength.”  Then, rather than taking the chair with her, she turned it on it’s side with a thump that echoed, taunting Alice with its nearness, knowing that there was no way for her right it and use it for an escape.

Picking up a brush, but waiting for Miss Sharpe’s footsteps to fade, Alice stared at her husband’s face.  She had painted him looking past her, with an unknowable look in his blue eyes, and now he seemed to watch his sister as she walked away.

 

The train had traveled past night into morning, though it was so dark out as a massive storm crossed the land Thomas could tell little difference.  They were nearing the station. Even if he had not heard the announcement from the conductor he had felt it in his bones. Each jostle and curve and hissing, smoking station stop between London and Crimson Peak was as familiar to him as a glass of whiskey clicking against his teeth when he had drunk too much, or the acrid, hypnotic smoke of the opium den, and just as unwelcome.  

He stared in a deep brood out of the window at the night, seeing nothing but the reflection of his own, haunted features and the occasional strike of lightning in the north, as if it were leading them.

At some point William had fallen asleep, poor fellow, his long body sprawled untidily across two seats, his face buried in the sooty upholstery.  Practically straight from one train trip to another with little food or rest in between, all for the friendship of a woman who had rejected him, and for the esteem of the one who hadn’t.  Thomas did not put himself into the equation. He knew William Preston thought little of him, when he thought of him at all. 

Still, from this terrible, storm-wracked night on, there was nothing William would not be able to call on Thomas for.  Should Thomas still be alive to be called on. 

He thought on Lucille and had no illusions.  She would be capable of encompassing his end, even if she did not know it herself and would deny it with all of the ugly passion in her heart. Additionally, if she had taken Alice from him, he was capable of it himself.

There would be no life worth the living of it, if he could not save his beloved girl.

“William, we’re here,” he said, his voice pitched to be heard over the rain and the shriek of the train braking.

 

The storm had rattled the house, buffeting it over and over, blowing out the candles and leaving Alice in the late morning darkness as she worked.  

It mattered not.

She knew Thomas’s face better than her own and she continued in the gloom, shading here, creating the hint of a line there.  It had been nearly done already. At one point she could have sworn there was a hammering on the door, but the house was so loud and the roof was so decrepit that Alice was certain it was only the Hall battering at itself.

In the early afternoon, MIss Sharpe returned, the metallic sound of the lift heralding her.  

She clicked carefully, and there was the musical tinkling of the tea tray as well.

“Oh, your candles,” she said, as if genuinely upset.  The tray was set on the floor beside Alice’s stool, and there was the strike of matches and the hiss of wicks being relit.  Then, she gasped.

“Alice… He’s… It’s… You are in love with him, aren’t you?  Of course you are. You are a weak little thing, but you at least have eyes to see him for who he truly is.”

She refused to look at her captor, or at her work as it was lifted by thin fingered hands, and sighed over with rapture.

“Of course I do.  I am his wife. I know things about him that no one else could dream of understanding.”  Her voice was a cool and emotionless as window glass.

The blow to her face was abrupt, as was the next and the next.  Each hard, open slap ringing her ears and making spital fly. Alice took them, refusing to cry out or make herself look foolish trying to stop the stronger, healthier woman’s attack.  The tears she shed, when the blows stopped, were those of rage and nothing else, and she refused to rage or meet Miss Sharpe’s eyes, keeping her expression bored.

The pain was nothing.  A trifle compared to the steady throb of her leg, and the way that her foot burned when she would shake it slightly to make the feeling return, as it had gone numb on her many times as she had worked.  Only the small tear on the corner of her mouth where the garish, massive ruby ring Miss Sharpe now wore caught her lip bothered her at all, and that mostly the taste of the blood from it making her slightly ill.

Lucille tugged at her cuffs, putting herself back into order, and poured a cup for Alice.

“There is another storm coming.  Finish your tea. You still have another work to finish.  I so long to see it completed.”

Again, Alice waited until Miss Sharpe left, now carrying the portrait, before she moved.

Her hands shook as she took up the bitter tisane, grateful to see porridge on the tray as well.  She would need her strength. Finishing the cup and then eating the bowl of sour oats, she felt better, clearer headed, and yet her stomach rebelled and her eyes took a longer moment to focus.

Then, taking the colour of the clay that still stained her hands and was clotted beneath her nails as her guide, she began mixing her colors.  The red that had haunted her was no longer elusive. She knew it. She could make it now with perfect ease. As she took a thick dollop of it on her palette knife, Alice looked to the work.  As ever, the god’s eyes, mocking even in his suffering, met her own with a sense of challenge.

She smiled at him, a smile as viperous as his own.  They shared something now. A refusal to bow even in defeat, to have their spirits held, even when in captivity.  Now she could see the way to finish him.

 

The house had never been silent, not in the middle of the night, when Thomas had woken from his terrible nightmares to crawl into Lucille’s bed where he would shiver against her until dawn when the weak light meant he could sleep again. Not even when his parents would leave for weeks at a time to travel to London, Edinborough, Paris, to spend and gamble and speculate away the Sharpe fortunes, taking all of the servants save the nanny who was to look after them alone.  

Every floor creaked, often times even when there was no footfall to make the boards shift and complain.  The roof, which even then was little but loose slates and rotting wood, would clatter with the slightest wind.  Beneath them, even when they were high in the nursery, there was ever the low, near subaudial constant of the pumps, struggling thickly through the red muck that made the family fortunes.

But the worst was the  _ breathing _ of the house as it moaned and sighed and even howled when the winds turned wrong and sang through chimney after chimney and down into the pipes, causing all of the masonry to expand and contract like a living, dying, thing.

Every time he had returned, his own footsteps on the sinking floor of the foyer, the click of his boots and the sucking noise of the red earth, brought back every fear from those days - of suffocating as the cracked walls fell in to trap him like a grave, of his father’s fists, of his mother’s cane, of secrets being discovered.  Each reluctant visit he would stand just within the arch of the door and shudder for endless moments until he could make himself take the next step and the next.

Now he flew in, running over those sinking boards, not feeling the rain that fell from the broken roof, shouting for William who moved on laggard’s legs, to check the kitchen, the parlour, as he raced up the stairs taking them two at a time.  Certain in his soul that the light he had seen in the third floor marked where he needed to go. 

William nodded at him, stumbling over the uneven floor.  They were both soaked and covered in muck. It had cost Thomas a small fortune in Alice’s money to obtain them a cart and a horse that he’d had to buy since no one would rent one, even to the local lord, knowing they could be lost in the weather.  It had been storming most of the night and all of the morning, and no one was willing to travel. Some of the roads coming from the north had even been washed out, leaving him with an icy certainty that no help had come from Carlisle to Allerdale Hall.

He stopped himself from crying out for his wife, fearing how his sister might react to what she would hear as a provocation, and instead, though his tongue rebelled, shouted  “Lucille!” Over and over. As he had as a child when their mother locked him in one of the rooms to keep them apart. 

She had always sensed the unnatural in them, even before it had existed, her motherly instinct able to go that far and no farther towards her children.  

The stairs, oak and still somehow solid when the rest of the house was clearly failing, disappeared beneath him as he took them two at a time.  He heard William cry out and he stopped himself, unwilling, his body straining like a hound straining on its leash, waiting for the hunter’s horn to free it to chase down its quarry.  Leaning over the elaborate railing, Thomas had a moment of dread that struck him like vertigo. 

“What?  For God’s sake, what?” his voice cracked and carried in the cold still air.

Far below him, William rushed from the dining room, looking up at Thomas, his hat gone and his golden curls haloing his pale face.  “Your butler, the red-head, his body. In the kitchen. Its… It’s dreadful, Thomas. So much blood. Go! I will finish this floor.”

Even at the distance between them, it was clear he was struggling not to be ill.  Perhaps remembering his brother’s monstrous murder.

Alice should have chosen him, Thomas thought, the better man.  I should have left her alone, and neither of them would be here.  His brother would be alive. 

He had no time for such thoughts, he scolded himself, as he turned and ran again, calling his sister’s name and praying for his bride, each dark, cold floor full of dark, cold rooms and memories to match them, echoed and mocked his efforts and his fading hopes.  Just as they always had.

Finally, at the far end of the long hallway on the third floor, where the woodwork of the low arches looked like thorns and blades, there was wavering candle light. There was a heap on the ground...  Something white and small. Overturned beside it, his mother’s wheeled chair. The sight of it, great and black and always as frightening to him as it’s occupant had been, made him nearly freeze. Thomas’s heels skidded as he ran along the hall.  Someone had gone to the trouble of cleaning and waxing this one stretch of flooring. 

She lay upon the ground before her easel.  The painting that had brought them together was finally finished, it seemed.  The unholy red of the god’s long hair glowed in the light of a branch of candles.  

“Alice!”  He skidded to a stop, falling to his knees beside her, gathering her into his arms.  Her face was pale and she was filthy, dressed in this cold place in nothing but a light shift that was covered in streaks of dried sick.  Her breath rattled from cold and smelled terribly bitter. 

There was something wrong with the way her leg lay under the drape of her chemise.

She lifted her head a bit, her eyes trying to focus, “Thomas?  I finished them, Thomas. The portrait, this one. I finished. She took the portrait…”

“Oh, my Alice, my love,” he cradled her against him, afraid to lift her for fear of causing her more hurt.  “What I have done to you?”

Her paint stained hand reached up to stop his words, “No, you have not done this, she has.  Your sweetheart. No, not your sweetheart, not just your sweetheart…” she cocked her head, seeing him with those too knowing eyes.  “No. Your sister. I see it, now. When she said it, I still doubted. But she shares your darkness, and your beauty, but for her that is all there is.” 

With a smile, she slid her fingers to his cheek, “But not you, my Thomas.  In you there is light as well, so much light.”

He shuddered now as he had not when he had stepped into his sepulcher of a house.  She knew. Alice with her artist’s gaze had seen all. 

And not turned away.

“I need to get you out of this dreadful place.  Hold me as tightly as you can, and I will try to cause you no more harm,” he said, rising with her in his arms.  Her lips grew white, but she did not cry out.

“I’m afraid she is past harm or good, Thomas,” Lucille’s voice was dry.  “The poison has seen to that.”

  
  
  



	18. Somniabunt Vinceret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice finishes her painting.

 

Alice had painted despite all the misery and anger she felt when Lucille had taken her portrait of Thomas.  Holding it as if it and he belonged to her! As if  _ he _ belonged to her!  

Knowing she was so nearly done, so close to completing it pushed her onwards.  With her hand cramping, her eyes blurring, she blinked against water that she refused to consider tears needing her sight to be clear.  Her heart had seemed to not remember how to beat as it should and so raced and then slowed. When it raced she was forced to stop for fear she might smear the rich, glowing red, but when it was slow she was able to work with perfect care, as if time itself was winding down for her so that she might create each line with the precision and perfection she had always dreamt of.

Though it was so dark and her eyes ached dreadfully… But she knew the painting well enough to work on even in the weak light as storm after storm shook the house. She was half convinced she could work upon it in utter darkness should the need arise, and it seemed it might.  

Once lightning had struck so close it had seemed it would send its fire down upon them, and the god she had dared to compass with her art had gloated at her knowingly in that flash of brilliant white light, willing her to finish it while her hand was still steady, while she could still hold a brush at all.

She had done as he willed.  The painting was finally done.  The thing that had been within her for so long, harassing and teasing her as she fought to give it form now finally existed in the world.  It was beautiful and Alice refused to be ashamed of the vanity of knowing it to be so. This was not a time for modesty, and the god at its heart would laugh in her face for such a missish emotion when boldness was what he had required of her from the start.  The boldness of both vision and act. Especially the boldness to approaching Thomas, her own wounded god. Feeling death close she was no longer ashamed to admit that she had worshipped him from first sight. Though now what she felt for him was so much more. 

“I  _ am _ dying...” Alice thought, surprised and yet not horrified.  Her entire life had been a thing loaned to her upon this earth and held fast by her mother’s guilty will.  Each day from her birth was a gift even more than other lives were, so close had she come to dying before she had even truly been alive.  It was why she tried to never resent her lot. 

She had lived to know so much beauty.  That of storms crossing Lake Michigan at dawn, of her brother’s grace as he rode past their summer garden, of her parent’s dancing so her mother’s deep crimson skirts swept the golden wood of the ballroom in their home, of the grey rain turning the parks of London the deepest, purest green, remembering the ancient forests that had once covered this country, and of Thomas’s blue eyes as they stared into her own, drawing her to join him in the private kingdom of their own bed and the pleasures they shared there.

Now her heart lurched with desire to behold what she had done.  With her remaining strength she angled the massive canvas so the dim light from the window and the remaining candle showed her work.

The bound trickster’s perfect body - Thomas’s body - bowed with agony as the serpent coiled above him, angrily spitting venom and twisting as it tried to free itself from its own unjust captivity.  The god’s perfect skin, the wildfire of his hair, and the poison as it fell into his eyes, all glowed in the darkness of the dank cave about them. 

The tender underside of a woman’s naked foot and a hint of her long unclothed calf could be seen stepping away into the darkness at the mouth of the cavern, a sense of urgency in its tension.  Alice had used her one good leg as model for the goddess’s hasty step away from her husband, eager to be done with her task, more eager to return to him and ease his suffering. She was pleased with the result.  Even more so with the impotent yet ever burning fury in the tied god’s face where it raged from out of the canvas and made her bones warm even her flesh grew ever colder.

Her own rage at being forever bound.

Then, as if the will of the god to be complete had been all that was holding her up, she slumped bonelessly.  Not finding the strength to stop her descent, Alice slid from the stool, her weakened feet smearing through the heavy wax. She pushed against it and her bad leg twisted hard beneath her, pulling up the soiled skirts of her shift so she was bare to the icy wood.  Normally the pain of it would have made her scream, scrabbling to lay it straight, but it was not so agonizing as the exhaustion. It could wait until after she rested.

The perfectly smooth, clean floor was terribly cold, even colder than her icy flesh, but Alice could not stay awake and let the darkness gather her in.

She dreamt of Thomas.

Oh, her Thomas.  For even if he did not think of himself as hers, she would claim him forever.

She dreamt of him as he had been to her, for those few weeks between the night she had gone to his rooms to Winnie’s party.  That time in which he had cared, the time in which she thought he might, perhaps, have come to love her. Not so much as she loved him, of course, because that could not be, but still she had thought he loved her then and she had been warm under that weight before he had changed.

He came to her and held her, lifting her against him with such care that it made her want to weep.  He kissed her cheek, her temple, her filthy hair, cradling her to him and gently trying to straighten her foolish leg.  Alice wanted to tell him not to bother. She could not feel any pain from it now, but she had so much else to say. 

Now she knew the truth between him and his sister, and she wanted him to know she judged him not for that truth.  That she loved him despite all and that could not be changed. She shushed him as he tried to take blame upon himself but she would not allow him to add to his own sum of guilt and darkness.  After all, what had he done but be a lonely child, needing to find solace and only finding where it should not be sought? Who trapped in this hellish place would not try to find some comfort, some joy?  And who else had they but each other?

For that she could not even bring herself to hate Lucille, though it clawed at Alice to know that her ugly love had eaten so much of Thomas’s heart and left nothing for her.

Lucille’s voice, cold and ironic, broke into her thoughts, and she felt Thomas hold her tighter, closer, as if he could hide her from his dark sister.  

Alice did not like this dream.

“Dance with me, Thomas,” she slurred out, pushing away the ugliness of this dream, searching for the one she had had so many times, where she was whole and they would glide across the floor in a waltz while her parents smiled, and Winnie smiled and clapped lightly with pleasure, and the well dressed crowd murmured with pleasure at the sight of their grace together.  But now, with a wave her hand that was freed from the need to hold her stick, she dismissed the others, wanting no company save his.

He came to her.  His tailcoat was black as a raven’s wing, his patent shoes gleaming, and he had tamed his wild curls with a touch of rosemary scented pomade.  Because they were alone, she stripped off her long gloves and reached up to muss them, enjoying their wildness and the heavy feel of them wrapping about her fingers.

He laughed then, shaking his head, reveling in her touch.  “Oh, my Alice…” 

It was strange that he sounded sad.

The music started, a waltz of course.  Thomas offered his hand, which she took, and he pulled her to him so they were pressed together rather than at the decorous but still intimate distance that the dance and society required.  Her breasts were pressed to his white shirt front, and his long fingers spread possessively over the small of her back. He held her one arm out properly, and then they spun.

Across the floor they went, her slippers barely touching the ground as Thomas led her, his mouth close to her ear as he whispered a thousand endearments that made her blush and a thousand wicked suggestions that made her go hot enough to melt, so his strength alone held her from slithering to the floor, dragging him atop her.

“Hold on, Alice.  Soon, soon, soon. Dance with me just a little longer, my love, my wife, and then I will take you from here and make you happy,” he crooned teasingly in her ear.  “Yes?”

Looking up to his soft gaze, she saw love and fear in his eyes.  

She nodded, unable to speak in her need for him.

“Good girl,” he whispered, spinning them as the music played on.

 

“It’s my understanding that the poison should be mostly painless.  They would give it to us in smaller amounts to keep us peaceful at the hospital.  Once one of the boys, one of my boys, was given too much and they had the devil’s own time bringing him back around even with the counter-agent.  He told me later, as I stroked his hair and let him cuddle against me that it was like falling asleep and dreaming under the snow and never wanting to waken.  Originally I had thought to use something more … agonizing. I thought she deserved to suffer, thinking her fortune could buy you. You! A baronet, a paragon, a Sharpe, joining yourself to a crippled slut?  When you are mine and I am yours? But, Thomas!” 

Lucille’s voice grew hushed and intimate, ”Thomas, for all of that she is quite gifted.  Her work! She could see you, truly see you. So for all of her pretensions to take a place amongst her betters, I thought she had earned herself a peaceful passing.  It should only be a few hours. She will sleep and slip away, like princess in a story.”

Thomas had always loved his sister.  Even when he had been forced to commit her to Ticehurst for her own safety and others, and for what he now confessed to himself was his fear of her, he had loved her.  He loved her even as he hated himself. His brilliant, warrior sister, had faced monsters to defend him so many times that it had turned her into a monster as well.

Worse, it had turned her into a Sharpe.  Cruelly selfish, believing that her wants and whims were more important than anything else, capable of the most heinous crimes, be it to further her ends or for the pleasure of committing them.  He had always blamed himself for her ruination. If he had been stronger, not a weak, pretty catamite of a lad, as his father had called him over and over whilst thrashing Lucille for Thomas’s imagined crimes, then he might have saved her, or at least spared her some of the suffering that made her this way.

But now, looking at Lucille as she stood above him, above Alice, their father’s Enfield revolver steady in her hand with no effect upon her visage, Thomas knew that he hated her as well.  That for all they had been each other’s whole and only safe world once, he would never remember her with anything other than the purest hate if his wife were to die. That maybe, maybe though she would never admit it for she had balanced too much of her identity on their being together, that Lucille hated him as well.  Hated him for letting her take his beatings, including the one from their mother’s cane that had knocked her wits askew. Hated him for leaving her in Ticehurst. Hated him for not wanting what she wanted, for them to always be together. 

Her, in this tomb of a house.

Where was William?  He was afraid of the possible answer and he dared not ask, for hope that Lucille did not know anyone else was in the house.  But that proved a faint hope. Like a spider in the middle of its web she could feel every movement in her domain.

“Your friend, the pretty blonde boy who is so fond of our Alice?  He took the lift downwards. I called it back up and jammed the mechanism.  It still floods down there on days like this, so the workers won’t be there to warn him or show he the other way out.  We shall have to purchase a new pump soon,” she mused heartlessly.

Thomas thought he would be ill, but steeled himself, trying to remember how quickly the lower levels filled with water during the stormy season.  

She raised the gun a little higher, her hand trembling, and her eyes narrowed.  “I said, put her down, Thomas.” Her voice lowered, growing sultry, “Put her down and come to me.  We are free now. We can make love in the master bedroom, as the master and mistress of Allerdale should.”

Thomas also recognized another thing in that moment, one that he had always denied in himself.

He was a Sharpe as well, also capable of anything - deception, violence, murder - to get what he wanted.

He wanted Alice.  

There was nothing he would not compass to have her.

Nothing he had done in his life, from committing Lucille to selling himself again and again until he felt there was little left to him that had not been sold, was as difficult as setting Alice back on the ground.  “Her fortune will save us, sister. Save us and this place. For that, too, we owe her a gentle death in a comfortable place.”

He knew Lucille.  Mad or not, she was as brilliant as ever, and was always one to plan for any eventuality.  If there was an antidote for the drug that was dragging Alice away from him, she would not have left Ticehurst without a store of it.  He needed her to to reveal where it was before it was too late.

His gaze turned to Alice’s painting.  It was magnificent, but all he could see was the angry gaze of the deity he had served as model for.  His own eyes narrowed and he nodded to the God of Deception, praying silently for His aid.

Stepping close to her, into the space where he could feel her softly huffing breath brush across his skin, Thomas felt her tense and then soften.  It sickened him now to smell her skin, the scent of the tea and bitter chocolate that she preferred and had once been the most comforting thing in all of the world to him.  They would lay in the dark, huddle beneath stacks of blankets in the freezing attic nursery, making a little cave that was filled with the smell of each other’s flesh and the sound of her singing him to sleep.

It was tempting, so tempting to wrest the gun from her hand, to take her braid in his hand and yank, forcing her head back whilst holding the barrel to her head, making her tell him what he needed to know to save his Alice.  But he resisted. He knew Lucille and she would surely rather die than tell him.

Rather, seeing how her pupils grew vast and black at his closeness, now he would be the one to lull her.  To control her.

Those hated years of whoredom and loathing had given him weapons and he would use them now without mercy. 

He traced her cheek with the back of his hand, tilting his head so he looked down at her, using those scant few inches of height he had over her to their fullest affect.  Turning his finger, they gently touched her lips, pulling the lower one down just the tiniest bit so he barely caressed the thin, sensitive flesh there, placing his other hand on her hip so he could move against her, letting his thigh brush her skirts so she would feel his heat beneath her gown.

Their mother’s old, velvet ball gown.  

It fit Lucille like it was made for her.

He whispered to her, as if confiding, as if Alice could still hear and they were keeping a secret from her, “When you came for me Lucille, I knew the truth.  The truth that you have known all along. That we are one. When I felt myself surrounded by you, in you, it was perfection that had eluded me in this corrupt and ugly world.  You are my home. Let me take Alice to one of the guest rooms. The Grey Room perhaps, it’s far from the master bedchamber. Let me lay her down on one of the beds to sleep away her last breaths in some little comfort.  She not to blame for being a foolish, naive girl. Then,” with a move as fast as a snake he captured her jaw and forced a kiss on her before she could prepare to want it, “Then, at last, I can take you to  _ our  _ bed.”

“Yes,” Lucille breathed the word and moved to kiss him again.

He smiled at her, pulling back and letting his fingers again toy with her mouth.  Unwittingly, as he knew she would, she suckled on his thumb, her eyes closing in bliss.  

“Go get ready for me.  Take a bath,” he ordered, “I know how much you have always loved a warm bath,” he added, lifting Alice, willing himself to do so with no particular tenderness or even gentleness, shifting her like a parcel.  

“But-”

He didn’t wait for her response.  Rather walked past Lucille with their father’s arrogant swagger, his assurance that his word was law and final, offering his back to her.  Thomas knew this would be the moment of truth. Would she let herself believe what she wanted to believe, or would he hear the cocking of a trigger.  

Each of his careful steps down the slick hallway floor rang heavily in the empty stillness of Allerdale.  

One.  He could hear the lace from Lucille’s hem stirring on the ground.

Two.  The sound of a chair being righted.

Three.  A screech of an easel being turned.

Four.  Silence.

Five.  Six. Seven.  Eight. Nine.

When he reached the stairs, certain he was out of Lucille’s sight, he let himself brush a kiss across Alice’s brow.  “I _ will  _ save you, my darling one.  But you must hold on. Hold on for me, Alice.”

  
  
  
  
  



	19. Desperatio Omnis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and William each make a desperate choice

 

Thomas was surprised to find that the Grey Room, whilst shabby and in need of new furnishings as the rest of Allerdale was not rank with filth.  Lucille, no doubt with the aid of some of those who had followed her from Ticehurst, had begun to see to the extensive housekeeping that he had never bothered with.

Over the years since he had gone to Town he knew it had been a scandal in the county that he had never hired caretakers to look after the Hall.  When he was forced to stay there during the times he came to look after the mine he had slept on a pallet in the kitchen, one of the only rooms in the house that had no bad memories for him.  Just the smell of bread baking on Tuesdays and the warmth and bustle on the times he and Lucille were fortunate enough to be allowed to eat there rather than in the dining room with their parents.

How lovely those days had been. Freed from the great, dark dining hall with the mahogany table gleaming and his hands trembling for fear he might chip a dish or dribble soup upon the linens.  Freed of the disapproving gaze of both of his parents and the poisonous miasma of their mutual hatred. In the kitchen there was porridge with generous dollops of treacle, pots of beans with streaky bacon, and a servant to tossle his hair or give Lucille an extra spoon of sugar in her tea.  She had always loved her tea to be burningly sweet.

It had been wonderful until their family fortunes had begun to wane.  The servant’s meals were skimpier then, and with mouths fewer to partake of them.  There was less affection for the children as time passed, partially due to the overwork and underpay inflicted upon the remaining staff by Sir and Lady Sharpe, but equally because of whispers, growing ever larger, of what kinds of goings-on were occurring in the nursery between the heir and Miss Lucille.

Then they were no longer the children of the house, but ‘spoiled brats’ who had no idea how good they had it, and ‘unnatural’ as well.

Thomas carefully maneuvered Alice, whose breathing was thankfully deep and easy like in a natural sleep, so he could remove the dust cover from the bed without setting her down.  Beneath, a deep blue velvet duvet and satin covered pillows were scented with lilac. The luxury of them was shocking, and he feared that more than a few had died to provide Lucille with the funds needed to work her improvements on Allerdale.

There was no water, but using his handkerchief Thomas was able to wipe some of the grime and sweat from Alice’s face.  There was a gummy kind of muck near the corners of her mouth and eyes and a smell of something metallic on her breath and he threw the cloth into the fireplace, so dirty was it.  Using a corner of the dust-cover he also removed the remnants of floorwax from her hands, her feet, and then her legs, which were smeared with it.

Because she would never let him otherwise, because he was not sure that he would live out the night, that either of them would, he took the liberty of placing a kiss upon the worst, the deepest scar on her wounded leg.  It was smooth and slightly cold beneath his lips, high on both the in and outside of her thigh, and he could not begin to imagine how much pain the making of it had caused her. 

He leaned over her, his hand gently covered it, and spoke to her, “If you were strong enough to survive this as just a little girl then I can survive Lucille to save you.”

She did not stir when he touched her this time.  Wherever she was, she was far from the nightmares of Crimson Peak and he prayed she would stay there until he could awaken her.

 

There was a sound of rushing water on every side and from beneath the tiled floor of the clay rendering room, and thin rivulets like weak blood snaked around William’s feet.  Since he had found himself trapped after the elevator cage had been called away and not returned he had not been idle, trying to find another way out. 

A thick, burbling noise came periodically from the giant vats of crimson clay that filled the massive, dim space.  It rattled their caged tops, making him feel that he was not alone in this dreadful place.

The waves of black storms that had been crossing the moors as they traveled to Sharpe’s ghastly house had worked their will upon the mines beneath and when he had found the entrance to the actual pit gory sludge had thickened and deepened until it had threatened to pull him down.  He had lost a boot and when he had finally made it back to the higher ground directly below the Hall, William had sprawled on the cold floor, chest heaving for long minutes.

Now he could feel that tiled ground swelling under his stockinged foot and knew that sooner rather than later this space would also fill with water and worse.  Worse still, the already weak electrical lights had started to flicker, growing out for increasingly long period of time. 

Water in the generator, no doubt, the engineer in him reasoned, even as the less precise part of his thoughts began to succumb to panic.  If Sharpe had not come seeking him already William could only assume the worst for both Thomas and Alice. 

He had to find a way out.

Seeing the empty space where the elevator car had stood gave him hope.  William wrenched the sticking metal gate open, looking upwards. The car was high up.  Perhaps as far as the second floor or farther. He could climb it easily but an atavistic fear of the caged space, of the car suddenly starting to descend, halted him.  Or should his hand or foot slip from even a small height the fall would land him on metal and a floor harder than stone.

Then a rush of icy water covered his feet.

He  _ had  _ to climb.  

Thinking of Winnie’s smile, of the adorable shock on her full, beautiful face as he told her the story of his dark adventure in the north, of the simple pleasure of kissing her, he toed off his remaining shoe and dropped his clay-caked coat from his shoulders with a heavy splash.   

William put a gloved hand to the metal and climbed.

 

The Master Bedroom of Allerdale Hall had been the location of so many of Thomas’s nightmares over the years.  It was there, in the privacy of the one room where no busy servant would dream to enter without prior arrangement, that Sir James or Lady Beatrice would enact their punishments upon himself and Lucille.  Not that Sir James might not raise his hand anywhere he chose, but those blows, whilst always heavy and shocking, lacked the dread of anticipation and the knowledge that whoever would be delivering them had had the time needed to be… creative.

A fresh storm was coming across the empty moor.  Thomas stood before the great door, running one hand through his hair, the other balled into a fist to strike his thigh over and over again until he knew a bruise had been raised in the same spot where his Alice had her worst wound.  Only then could he make himself enter.

As with certain other places in the Hall, Lucille’s good work was evident.  A fresh smell of heather and candlewax, along with that from the nicely laid fire, greeted him.  The furniture, though still old and worn, was neatly dusted and freshened. The stylized, golden spires that hung from the ceiling like stalactites in a cavern gleamed, looking ready to descend and impale him.  

Lucille waited for him on the bed.  She wore a dressing gown of red satin, her beautiful dark hair hanging in waves about her Madonna-peaceful face.  Above her the ugly, magnificent canopy looked like a row of teeth over a scarlet tongue. As if the whole of the bed were a great mouth ready to devour him forever.

Standing slowly, she moved languidly towards him, “The Master of the hall has finally returned,” she smiled.  Her shoulders were squared and her head proud. A queen greeting her king. 

Thomas knew for the first time that any sense of equality between them had been a gift from Lucille.  That every blow she had taken for him and every tear afterwards, tears that she had allowed him to ‘comfort’ her for, had made her his ruler.  That even now, calling him Master was her humoring him in a way since she had orchestrated all to lead him to this moment and back to her bed and he had allowed it by his cowardice.

Never again.  Now he had the knowledge to fight her.  

He spread his legs and crossed his arms, tapping his lips with a furled finger.  Narrowing his eyes, he observed her as he had dozens of women he had serviced in the past.  Looking at her in a way that would strip her of all pretense and power. That would show him the rawest, ugliest, neediest hunger she had.  

Lucille stopped abruptly, as if a rope had been tied to her waist and was suddenly pulled taut.

“What- is something the matter, Thomas?” she asked warily.  She raised an arm as if she would touch his face, but even then could not move closer to him.  

Thomas took slow, careful steps, circling his sister, still observing as if she were a specimen before a naturalist.  She tried to turn to face him but his long legs kept her ever at a deficit. “You have grown even more beautiful, Lucille.  A woman in body, in face, lovely. But,” he stepped quickly forth, so her back was pressed to his chest, “that is a pretty fiction, is it not?  You may look a woman, mistress of a great house, but you are still the girl I locked away those years ago at heart. Crying for me. The girl who needed someone to take care of her but had no one.”

She did not speak, but froze, vibrating with tangled emotions that he could taste on the air. 

Thomas took himself to the empty place where he had lived before Alice.  To the place where he could act and feel nothing, the place that echoed with cold and the sound of his breathing.

Snake-fast, he wrapped a hand about her throat and pulled her against him, “Is that not the real you, Lucille? Pretty girl?” he hissed into her ear.  Then he softly stroked her wild pulse with his thumb. “You do not need to say it. I know you cannot admit it, yet. But I am here for you, to make you weak.  You want to be weak for me, I can smell it on your skin.”

Touching her was like touching the skin of some deep sea creature.  Revulsion sang along his nerves. But all of that seemed far away as he protected himself within that empty place.

Thomas quickly flicked his tongue along her jaw.  “I can taste it as well,” he purred into her ear as she softened and sagged against him, the wildness leeching from her.

“Please, Thomas.  Please….” 

When she let him carry to her to the bed, there were tears of need in her eyes.

 

William braced himself against the caged space between the basement and ground floor of the great house gasping.  

The climb had been harder than he had thought, and higher.  The great arches of the mine beneath the house had meant the ceiling of the vat room had need to be very high.  Additionally the metal slats that held the lift in place as it moved were slanted and curved as much as straight, so his feet and hands slid down them after a time if he did not grip tightly enough to hurt.

Though his arms and legs were strong enough for the climb, his stockings were shredded and the soles of his feet bled onto the cold iron, feeling as if they would freeze in place, knowing the numbing of that cold was the only thing keep pain at bay.  The thickness of his leather gloves kept his hands from being similarly abused. Even so, his fingers already ached from holding him in place. 

Not so far above him he could see light.  He was close.

Unlocking himself, William reached above his head and made his fingers close around another slat.

 

Alice’s dream started to fade around her.  The branches of candles that lit the ballroom where Thomas held her and they waltzed grew brighter and brighter.  Bright enough that details grew indistinct, washing away the walls, the floor, the ceiling, leaving the two of them hanging in a brilliant emptiness.  

“Thomas?  Thomas I am afraid,” she clung to him.  Her leg had started to hurt again.

His arms grew looser about her, “There is nothing to fear, Alice.”  He seemed to step backwards, again and again, until their arms were stretched and she could barely feel the touch of his fingertips against hers.  “There is nothing to fear.”

“Don’t leave me alone here,” she whispered.

“There is nothing to fear,” he repeated, disappearing backwards into the light.

Her leg collapsed beneath her and she fell.  She fell and fell.

A scream woke her, perhaps her own.

 

Thomas left Lucille sleeping.  Her naked body sprawled across the velvet duvet, spent and marked.  He had not so much as removed a boot no matter how much she had begged to see him, to worship him.  His chill refusal had inflamed her further than any acquiescence on his part ever could. Her own begging aroused her to the point where it took but the lightest, most disinterested caress from him to send her over the edge.

He took her there again and again, caring nothing for her appeals for mercy.  For her cries of love. She had not truly wanted the mercy and he had none to give her. He still and would always love Lucille, though not the way she wanted, but he would kill her with no regret if he could not save Alice.

Himself as well.  He had decided the thing as he looked down at himself and his sister as if from very far away.  

But for now he left her on the bed, hastily wiping his fingers and mouth on the bed linens.  He knew Lucille. Though the house was all of hers, all of her in a way, she had ever been like a burrowing creature, hiding her treasures together in one place so they might not be found and taken from her as punishment.  A favorite doll, even though its china face was cracked from being dashed from her hands, a book of nursery rhymes in French, a dried flower from their mother’s garden on one of the rare days of good favor, a long curl from his hair the first time his baby locks had been shorn, she had kept them all in a hole behind the wardrobe in the nursery.  

Thomas was certain that now as Mistress of the Hall she had such a hiding place in the master suite.

For a moment he halted, finding that she had placed Alice’s paintings behind the dressing screen near the fire.  The god, his eyes burning and his body arched and tensed with rage and agony he had already seen, but the portrait of himself he had not.  

Thomas looked into his own eyes.  No, he looked into the eyes of the man Alice saw when she looked at him.  When  _ he _ looked at  _ her _ .  As ever she saw too much and too clearly, finding in them the unhappiness that he recognized but a hope that he did not.  A hope that he never saw when looking in the mirror, but that he knew was there when he gazed at her. 

Shaking off the sudden desire to slap Lucille awake and demand to know where the counteragent to the drug she had give Alice was he bent again to his search.  Though there were a few personal things of her’s here and there - hair ribbons, a perfume bottle, their mother’s pearl ear-fobs that she had inherited after the murder - none of them were things he knew she found especially precious.

He stood in the center of the room, wondering if he had been wrong and that she had placed what he sought in the nursery when he saw it.  The chair. The great, black wingback monstrosity that looked like it was waiting for a victim to enfold. It was where their mother would sit and observe them.  Where she would perch, her wounded leg before her, and avidly watch when Sir James punished whoever had fallen to his wrath, be it servant or child. A look of proud coldness in her gelid eye as she hated him and silently rejoiced that she would not be the one beneath his fist or bootheel that day.

Once Lucille had bled on it and her mother had cuffed her soundly for it.  For defacing her throne.

It had been pushed against the wall.  When he pulled it away he found the back had been slit open.  Miles of old stuffing must have been pulled out, for all that remained was the wire skeleton of the beast.  Within in found a madwoman’s treasure trove.

Scraps of cloth from old dresses.  Bits of newspaper, clippings from any time his name was in print as having attending this or that soiree.  A great, rusted kitchen chopper that he could not touch. 

When Lucille had sunk it into their mother the sound of it hitting bone was no different than when cook had used it to make the luncheon joint.  

On and on, things whose meaning was lost upon him and others, like the leather belt he had worn as a lad, that he wished were.  Finally, he was forced to ignore a childish fear and half climb into the back of the seat to unearth a smallish leather valise. Within, neatly arrayed, were a number of medicine bottles.  One or two were readily apparent. Cheaply produced laudanum, pills for ladies’s complaints, and the like. But the rest were mysteries.

“Wha-, what you are doing?”  Lucille’s voice came from the other side of the seat.  She leaned over the top and found him crouched there with her case.  Thomas slumped for a moment, his fingers to his head. What could he say that would convince her that he was hers still, caught as he was.  Nothing. There was nothing to say. 

Then he stood, straight and fast, the case in his firm hand.  Startled, Lucille backed away and they faced each other over the back of the chair.

“Which of these is the antidote, sister,” he gestured to the drugs.

She had pulled the blood colored dressing gown around her, but she was in a state of utter disarray, still flushed and now confused.

“The antidote?”

“For Alice.”

She gaped at him, her expression horrified, perhaps even sickened.  “You, you… you _ love _ her!”

“As I never have any other.”

His voice was flat.

“But I will stay with you, Lucille.  Here, if we can, or we can travel. I will be your… your object veneration.  Your idol. I will let you worship me and I will bring you all of the pleasures that I have learned in my years of whoring.  I will dote on you publicly and punish you as you like in private. But you will save my wife.”

“You are mine!  You are supposed to love me.  Only me! There is no antidote, you fool.  You deceiver. She will die.”

She choked upon a laugh.

Thomas nodded a flicked open the top of one of the vials with a careless gesture.  He smelled it. There was a thickness sweetness. It was clearly what Lucille had doused him with at Winnie’s fete when she had raped him, for he could see it for what it was now.  His gaze finally clear.

“What are you doing?”  Lucille tried to reach the case.

He backed away, opening another bottle, this one corked.  It had an astringent quality. Bracing and healthful.

“Stop!”  She came around the chair, but he easily walked away from her.  Her legs were heavy and tired, and his were longer. Another bottle.  Not it.

Lucille’s hands flailed around him.  Another bottle.

There is was.  The metallic, medicinal odor he had kissed on Alice’s lips.  

“If she is to die, I will not let her go into the dark again.  I only pray she will petition heaven for my sake,” he lifted the thin glass to his lips and tossed all back in one go.

Lucille’s screams echoed through the emptiness of Allerdale, waking its sleeping dead.

  
  



	20. Mors omnia Vincit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fate of Allerdale Hall is decided.

 

The master bedroom was dark but for the enormous fire, yet Thomas could see the wild horror in his sister’s eyes as she lunged towards him.  He was not certain what to expect from the drug. Lucille had said it was given in small doses to keep the inmates of Ticehurst peaceful, and it had put Alice into that deep sleep. 

It tasted foul, metallic, rotting, and bitter.  For a moment he thought his body would cast it back out, but as he held Lucille’s flailing hands in one of his, he stopped his gorge from rising, swallowing deeply so it was clear he had emptied the bottle.

The sight of it took Lucille’s legs from under her, and she fell to the ground at his feet.  He sneered down at her, taking a brief, hot pleasure in her fear. Let her know how he felt, the dread of knowing Alice was drifting farther from the shores of life with every breath.  

Lucille’s delicate wrists were still tight in his hand, her dressing gown had fallen from her shoulders revealing the white silk gown beneath so she looked like nothing so much as a supplicant bleeding before a cruel god.

“Thomas…” she whispered his name. 

Then, in a sudden motion she wrenched her hands free, rising, “Stay here.  Rest. I shall return quickly,” she ordered, rushing from the room, the slap of her bare feet pounding over the wooden floors.  

A lightness took Thomas’s head, and a gentle weariness overtook his limbs.  With an effort he staggered towards the trunk at the end of the bed, refusing to sit elsewhere in the room.  

He lay his cheek against the carved wood and let his eyes close for but a moment, until he heard the sound of the ancient lift creaking into motion. 

 

Mere feet from the gate leading to the ground level of Allerdale, and his freedom, William’s heart turned to ice as he heard the clanging of a metal gate and the grinding of old machinery coming to life.  

The lift, high above him, began its inexorable crawl downwards. 

For a moment he was frozen with fear.  Should he descend, hoping it would stop before he was crushed, that it would not be going all of the way to the basement floor, or should he try and lunge upwards, hoping to beat the car?  Knowing he could afford no time for hesitation, he moved his pained and bleeding hands, praying as he had not since he had been a child afraid of the dark.

 

Alice felt awake, as if for the first time in ages, but only a little.  She felt her legs, her arms, her face. Everything, including the fingertips she traced across herself, seemed numb and distant.  Even the way her limbs answered when she tried to lift herself from the bed was strange and slow. 

The darkened room she lay in was large and strange, with a scent of rainwater and old furnishings.  Before she could move or call out the door to the room opened and she felt herself lifted and carried away.  

 

Lucille raced into the kitchen, her nightgown billowing behind her.  She had stolen as much from the drug stores at Ticehurst as she had been able to carry when she had fled the keeping of those fools.  Some of it she had sold for seed money to take her to London, afterwards taking the funds she needed from those she killed. 

The remainder she had squirreled away here and there through the house, some having been useful for ridding herself of those who had aided in her escape and were now in the way.  They rested in the clay beneath the house. 

_ Thomas, Thomas, Thomas _ , her voice chanted in her head.  He was so close to her’s, no matter how stubborn he might be, no matter how cruel his words.  They had _ promised  _ to be together forever.  She knew that once Alice was dead the will to fight would be out of him and he would be her good boy again.

She knew she had time, but still panic made her ill and wild.  The drug that he had taken killed slowly, even pleasantly, which is why it had been especially useful and, in her mind, merciful.  Though with that said, she certain that the only reason his weak bride had not succumbed earlier was the resistance she must have built up to various opiates over the decades of her cripple’s existence.

Pushing a small cabinet aside in a crash of pans, Lucille found the stash of the remaining antidote.  It should just be enough to save him. 

When she returned to the lift her feet and the hem of her gown were stained with red clay.  It must have been seeping through the floors again. Thomas would have to see to that. Now that Allerdale’s master was back he would have to take things in hand, as she would in turn take him.

She half wept with frustration as the cage climbed so slowly upwards.  When she finally had returned to their bedroom - hers and Thomas’s finally and always now - Lucille threw the door open.

Her brother sat on the floor beside the fire, his wife laying on the heathrug.

 

When the door opened Thomas could not wait, needing to be certain his gamble had paid off. He was nearly sick with the relief he felt at the sight of his sister, wild eyed at the sight before her, holding a brown medicine bottle.  Standing he crossed the floor in a few long strides, snatching it from Lucille’s limp hand. 

Shocked at his seemingly miraculous recovery she did not follow as he returned to where he had lain Alice beside the fireplace, unwilling to have her sullied by so much as touching the coverlet on the master bed.

Kneeling on the ground beside his wife, Thomas propped her up against his legs, quickly unscrewing the bottle top.  Whatever healthful properties it might hold, it smelled of nothing but water.  _ God it let work.  Let it work, and if not, let me kill Lucille before I kill myself in turn _ , he thought.

“Open for me, my Alice,” he murmured, gently pressing the lip of the bottle to her mouth.

It seemed she heard him, or simply sensed that he was there.  Her lips parted a bit and he was able to moisten them with a few drops.  She licked them, with a sleepy grimace of distaste, but when he poured more she drank with more ease.  

Lucille grasped at Thomas, trying to pull his hand back but it was too late.  He had given the entire contents of the bottle to Alice. “No! No! That is all there is.  You must save some for yourself!”

He turned towards her, pulling his cravat loose and unwinding it, throwing its sodden length in her face.  It reeked of metal and rot. “An old whore’s trick for an old whore, sister. It doesn’t do to get too drunk when one is working.  You might forget to be paid. Some goes in, the rest goes elsewhere. I always wear black for a reason.”

She held the cloth in trembling hands, for once unable to speak.  “It’s done Lucille. All of it. You are returning to Ticehurst. I would not choose to trust you there, but at least they know who and  _ what  _ they are dealing with now.  I have no more mercy for you.  You are no longer my sister. You are no longer anything to me but a thing in my keeping, to bearing the burden of which will help me atone for my sins and weakness.  Like this monstrous house.”

Alice made a noise.  Perhaps she spoke his name. 

Turning away from Lucille to kneel beside her, Thomas did not see her lunge for him, knife in hand.

 

There was a sour taste on her lips.

Alice had heard voices, Thomas again, and then Lucille, as she returned to wakefulness.  This time the state rushed upon her, as she were in a train speeding to a known destination, the hazy numbness disappearing quickly as a vital warmth flooded her blood.  She felt her husband’s hand touch her face, her throat, with great tenderness and trembling, then she could sense him moving away from her. 

Now his voice was cold and firm, and she could tell he was not speaking to her.  With a reaching hand hoping to snag at him, Alice pulled herself to sitting position and croaked out, blinking her eyes open, “Thomas.”

His black suited figure turned and crouched over her, a look of pained longing in his eyes.  “Alice?” 

From behind him she could see a blur of white, and a face twisted in hate.  

Alice was still recovering, but Thomas’s stooped position meant it took but the slightest shove to push him over and away from his sister’s malice and her flashing blade.  Lucille kept coming, crawling over his prone figure, determined to bury her knife in her rival’s flesh as much as in Thomas’s. 

A look of angry joy filled Lucille’s eyes as she stabbed Alice.  The blade scraped along the bone of Alice’s shoulder, through thin cloth and flesh, as if it would pin her to the ground.  Her own rage flooded her, wiping away the lingering effects of the drug in her system.

Alice laughed, and grasped her sister in law’s hand, squeezing it tightly, her enemy’s tendons straining and cracking, where it was wrapped about the hilt, and wrapped her healthy, so very strong good leg to entangle the other woman’s own.  “Do you think to overwhelm me with pain and fear, Lucille? I can assure you, I know them both as well as you. Thomas knows them, too. We will fight you for each other until the last, and you will lose, because you are alone and we will never be.”

For a moment Lucille stared into Alice’s eyes, her expression confused, uncertain, and filled with tears.  She could almost pity her. 

Then, a black clad arm lifted Lucille’s flailing body away.  

Alice pulled the knife free from her shoulder and used a piece of furniture to pull herself upright just as Thomas threw Lucille away from them.  She landed, sliding across the too slick floor, her hands scrabbling at the waxed wood. Unable to stop herself, she skidded into the massive fireplace.

For a moment, it seemed that she would be able to grasp the carved marble sides of the hearth and pull herself free but then… Alice blinked, certain that the remnants of the poison were causing her to see things that could not be, but she could swear that for a moment she saw another figure in the fire.  That arms, skeletal and barely draped in flesh the color of gore, wrapped themselves about Lucille’s waist and yanked her backwards into the fire.

Her howls were terrible, the things of nightmares, and a cloud of burning hair, skin, and silk fouled the air.  Alice, unthinking, stumbled towards her to try and pull her free from the flames, only to be stopped by Thomas, “No, it’s too late!” 

Lucille, wildly batting at herself, found her knees and then her feet and began to run, still screaming.  As she tore from the room fiery sparks flew from her, catching dried old wood,and the hangings of the great bed.  For a moment she stopped, her arms spread, the white silk of her gown disappearing in a moment so it was as if she were dressed in the fire, illuminated, beautiful, terrifying, looking like death herself.  Then the moment passed and she was a woman dying an agonizing death.

At the same moment a great gust of wind barrelled through the countless chimneys and ducts of the ancient building, making it breathe and wail, drawing the fire upwards through the flue, where it would catch the roof.

Thomas lifted Alice into his arms and bolted from the room, nearly retching from the sight of Lucille and smell of the burning, decaying wood and stone.

“William!” he screamed, over the sound of his sister’s agony, over the sound of burning, “William!”

A figure looking like it had been dipped in dried gore answered from where he wearily climbed the stairs, “Sharpe!  My god, Alice!” 

Alice barely recognized her handsome former suitor, so worn and scarred was he from his brief time in Allerdale Hall.

“We must leave, even with the rains this place will be gutted in no time,” Thomas said.  “Your wound, my love,” he said to Alice, who shook her head, she could barely feel it.  "Your paintings...."

That pain she did feel, lancing through her, worse than the throb in her temples and dryness of her mouth from the drug, more than her leg, more than any wound.  She shook her head again.  She was alive.  Thomas was alive, there would be time and her work and their love before her and that was all that mattered.

Not trusting the lift to carry the three of them, they headed to the stairs again.  Fire traced over the floor, the thick wax now turning into licked flames that raced towards them, that raced everywhere.  

When they reached the second floor, Thomas kissed Alice’s forehead, “I have to put you over my shoulder, my love.  Hold as tightly as you can.”

As they descended the last great curve of the stairs, Alice alone could see behind them a burning figure following.  “It is not possible…” she thought, her fists tightening on the back of Thomas’s coat.

But it was.  Lucille was determined to not die alone.  “Thoooommmmaaasss!” her wail was as ghastly as the stench and sight of her.  Rather than run down the stairs, she threw herself from one landing down towards the one they were upon, setting more alight. 

Now the smoke made all impossible to see, save more fire.  They all choked on the miasma. They reached the sagging, clay-clogged floor just steps before Lucille, the three of them near blind from sweat and ash.

One hideously burned hand reached out to grasp Alice’s hair, and she whimpered in horror at what was left of Lucille’s tragic beauty.

Turning at the foot of the stairs and letting Thomas rush past, William reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulling forth the pistol that Winnie has pressed upon him at the train station, and fired.  

The crack of the gun echoed through Allerdale Hall, followed by another crack, greater, louder, deeper, as the heat of the fire broke through the great staircase, plunging the corpse of last mistress of Crimson Peak into the red abyss below.

They made it through the doors and a few yards along the red clay road that led to the end of the grounds when the roof gave way.  Thomas kept running a few steps and then slowed and finally stopped, sliding Alice down to stand beside him. 

 

The three of them watched the rising mud and the fire fight over the dying hulk of Allerdale Hall until the rains stopped and the sun rose, bringing with it miners, coming to see if there would be work that day.


	21. Amor Vincit Omnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All things must end, save love.

  


**Museum of Contemporary Arts Upcoming Exhibitions -**

**Alice Meadows-Sharpe : The Female Gaze : the Erotic, the Dreadful, and the Joyous  -**

**October 31, 2011 to April 3, 2012**

Lady Alice Meadows-Sharpe (1886 - 1984) was born to the height of privilege in Chicago during the waning days of the Victorian era, at the apex of the city’s post fire prosperity.  The daughter of the bootstrap founder of Meadows Department store and a Main Line debutante from back east, there was little that she was denied as a child, save a life free from suffering.  

Both physical pain and debility due to the often agonizing and restricting effects of a riding accident her mother had while pregnant with Alice, and emotional turmoil, resulting from tragic events surrounding her marriage to Sir Thomas Sharpe, were central to her life and reflected in her art.

Her steady work ethic and her ability to transform pain and loss into the works that made her scandalous in her youth were perhaps a survival mechanism in a time when women had few options other than to accept unhappiness as their lot in life.  Yet pieces such as _The Last of God of the North, Lovers Buried and Entwined,_ and her earliest masterwork, _A Woman Clothed in the Sun_ , a tribute to her sister-in-law, Lady Lucille Sharpe, who died in a horrific accident while still a young woman, speak of a mind and spirit ever refusing to be bound by convention or physical limitation…

 

Alice waited in her studio with as much patience as she was capable of, which seemed so much less that it she had had in the past.  She stumped heavily to the great window that gave her perfect morning light on those days that light was to be had.

It was raining, of course.  When she had first come to England she had loved the rain, the promise of lush green it offered, and the hush of the streets as carriages and quick footsteps moved through puddles.  Now… now she longed for a little sun.

In the days since she had returned from Cumbria she had spent much of her time sleeping, healing, and assuaging her parent’s fears with partial lies. So many lies to remember now.  Yes, she and Thomas had been in residence at Allerdale Hall when the horrific fire destroyed it and killed his poor sister. She had not told them of their journey because it was meant to be a flying visit so he could attend to some business and she could see his childhood home, and it was the worst kind of coincidence that they and William - who had become friends with Thomas quite recently - were there when it happened.

They were all devastated that they could not save Lucille…

Thomas, unfortunately yet logically, was forced to stay north for a time.  As the owner of both the property and the mine beneath he had a thousand matters to attend to with the local authorities as well as trying to find a way to save the livelihoods of the miners.  That at least had been the truth.

Alice prayed that it was _all_ of the truth, that the only reason he had stayed away as long as he had was for those reasons and not for reticence in returning to her.  When they had parted at the train station, she wearing an old dress bought from one of the miner’s wives for a huge but gratefully paid sum, he looking exhausted, drawn, beautiful.  He had passed her into William’s arms as her cane and brace had gone in the fire, along with the only wheeled chair in the district. With a kiss to her forehead, he had whispered, “I will be as quick as may be.  I swear I shall.”

Then he had grabbed William’s arm, looking into his eyes, “Preston, I -... Thank you.”

William had nodded, and they had shared one of those inscrutable male looks that offered nothing but seemed to have meaning for them nonetheless.  The whole way back she had stared out of the window at the blur of England, whilst poor William slept, his bandaged hands and sore feet jerking him awake from time to time.  She stared and wondered if she would truly see Thomas ever again.

There had been no private moment they had been able to share before they left.  All had been action and questions, and Thomas every moment fighting to extricate Alice and William from dealing with the authorities so they might return home with no delay.

No moment to speak, to share, to offer comfort.  Nothing beyond a look now and then, a look from him that she hoped was full of longing, a look to him that she prayed he would read correctly.

Word had been sent ahead, and Winnie had been waiting for them when they arrived in London, having stopped at the Sharpe home for another cane and brace for Alice.  She clucked over them like an angry yet relieved hen. She had bundled them into her carriage, where she had whiskey and hot water waiting for both of them, her huge bosom heaving with frustration, her plump hands patting Alice’s arm and stroking William’s face.

For the first few blocks she had spoken non-stop, demanding to know what had actually happened, certain the papers had gotten the specifics wrong.  

Alice and William had met each other’s eyes, agreeing in silence that now was not the time.  All was still too sore and raw. But he would tell Winnie everything, she deserved to know.

Later.  When they were alone.  When his heart was able to be unburdened and his words would be clear.

Instead of answering Winnie then, William had taken his lover’s hand and pressed a kiss to her gloved palm, a tear leaking from his eye.  “When I thought I might never see you again, I knew one thing. If I were fortunate enough to live and see your beautiful face, and hold your warmth to me, I would lobby you day and night to leave your husband.  We must be together, Win. We must.”

Flustered and shocked, she had sagged back, her pretty round face pink, “William, the scandal.  Your family. MY family. We cann-”

“Yes, we can,” he agreed, nodding with a smile, kissing her to silence.

Alice had looked out of the window again, but this time happy to do so, giving her dear friends the illusion of privacy.

Oh, how sadly jealous she had been of that kiss these last days.  Of that sweet, shy smile that they had shared with each other afterwards, and the way their bodies had coiled towards each other.  Each night she had taken her still sore, lonely self to bed and stared at nothing, having slept too much during the day to rest at night, and longed for her husband.

Some moments she would drift off, having thought so intently of Thomas that it would seem for a moment he was there, his long body sliding in beside her.  His arms taking her close so she would rest upon his chest, a leg gently covering hers, so they breathed together. When she would reach out to touch his face she would awaken alone.

When the telegram had arrived that she could expect Thomas the next day but with little more information than that she had been torn between joy and anger.  No word for nearly a week had left her with a feeling of grief, that their marriage had died with Lucille in the fire. Or perhaps it had already been dead before all that had happened at Allerdale and now it was with his sister in the cold ground of Crimson Peak.

Alice considered meeting his train or that she might await him the salon on the ground floor of the house, but she knew that the first time she saw Thomas’s face she would know his intent even before he spoke.  She could not, would not, learn such a truth before the eyes of strangers or servants.

Only in her studio could they be certain to be uninterrupted.

From the window she could see their carriage arriving from the station.  Their new butler, Adamsley, held an umbrella for the master of the house, so she did not see Thomas exit, only the gleaming black silk of the brolly and his long legs as he quickly stepped into the house.

Her hands began to shake and her palms grew damp.  Clutching the skirts of her brown, working dress, Alice left her stick leaning on the window seat and walked slowly to stand in the center of the room near her easel and chair.

The door opened sooner than she had expected considering they were on the third floor, and Thomas stepped in, his head down, turning half away to close the door behind him.  He had left his coat and hat below and his dark curls were wild with damp where they brushed the collar of his old, black suit.

When he looked up, their eyes met.  He was breathing a bit heavily, as if he had exerted himself recently.  His face was thinner, and he had shaved poorly that morning. Deep red lined his eyes, almost as if he bled from them.  

She knew.

 

...Yet as shocking as those early paintings were it was her epic,1923 work, “Thomas at Rest,” a life-sized nude of her husband, laying on a daybed in her studio at her family’s summer home in Wisconsin, that made her both famous and infamous.  

The image of a male nude was in and of itself far from unusual, but one posed in a manner that is clearly meant to seduce, his hand casually wrapped about his erect penis, and painted by a woman, was.  

The tangle of his dark hair, shot with silver, the look in his seemingly sleepy eyes - challenging and ready -, one long leg slung over the side of the mattress so the view of his genitals is not merely unobstructed but borders on the pornographic, and his handsome, almost amused face, speaks to a sexual desire that was considered unseemly or even non-existent in women of the time.  But even more shocking are the intimacy of the work and the absolute comfort and trust that is obvious between subject and artist.

That the subject was himself a respected, wealthy engineer and philanthropist, whose groundbreaking work creating medical braces and prosthetics had made him a fortune after World War I, as well as a hero to thousands of disabled soldiers, only added to Lady Alice’s notoriety and the infamous reputation of the painting itself…

 

Thomas stopped in the doorway and looked at his wife.  He waited for questions or for stilted pleasantries, for accusations or a resigned look.

Alice held out her arms.  

He went to her.

All of those days had worn his already exhausted patience and nerves.  Days of not being able to comfort her, of the local authorities questioning everything he told them, of trying to sleep in the small room over the post office, had been torment even for one as familiar with torment as he.  He had tried again and again to put onto paper his thoughts, to send her some word of what was happening and of how he longed to be with her, and each sheet of paper had ended up in the fire, hating that he knew Alice would be wanting word from him but unable to write what he needed to write.  All came out sounding trite and foolish. There was too much between them now to be conveyed in plain paper words.

Even worse was trying to find what he would say to her, wracking his brains as he traveled south.  All he could think, over and over, was ‘Let me love you, Alice. Forgive me, accept my battered soul and all of the secrets you know of it now, and let me love you, and no woman will ever have been so loved, for no woman is so deserving of it.’  Still trite, still foolish. What declaration could speak to the suffering she had endured for him?

Very well then, he resolved, he would do without eloquence or embellishment, those thoughts that would come to him when they were together again would have to do.

When Alice was not at the station waiting for him he felt both fear and relief.  When he arrived at their home and was told by a slightly confused butler that the lady of the house was expecting him in her studio and _not_ the drawing room, Thomas ran up the stairs on trembling legs.  

She stood awaiting him.  Despite all that had happened she looked so strong.  One of her hands, red from where she had no doubt recently cleaned away paint or ink, rested lightly on the back of a chair, though for the moment she did not seem to need the aid in standing.  Her long, ashy braid hung over her shoulder, and he was reminded of that first day that he had come to her, stripped bare, and laid himself all unknowingly at her feet and mercy.

How strange she had seemed to him then.  He had not recognised what was blindingly clear now, that Alice was utterly a thing unto herself - brave, unbending, and certain.  Dear, brilliant, and his. She had been his from that first day, as he had been hers, though it taken so much time and suffering for him to know that truth.

In the end, he had not needed to say a word.  Words would come later. Revelations and tears and secrets would pour from him like water over a falls.  He needed to be unburdened and he knew she wanted those burdens to bear, but for now no words were needed.  

Hope was in her eyes, a small smile on her lips.

He went to her.

 

...To quote the introduction to 2007 collection of the Sharpes’ writings and correspondence - _Alice and Thomas : A Life Entwined -_  by Jonathan Sharpe, their grandson, child of their second daughter the noted poet Wilhelmina Sharpe-Preston, “At the risk of being vulgar, I don’t think anyone I have ever met had fewer fucks to give in this life than my grandmother.  Even though I was a little boy when she passed that was clear to me, though probably not something I would have thought of in those exact words. It became even more obvious years later when I was allowed to read the letters she had exchanged over the years with her friends, colleagues, and especially those to my grandfather, many of which left me blushing and, if I am being honest, more than a little envious...

 

Thomas’s hands lifted to her face, cradling it, leaning down to search her as if afraid that he might see some rejection or fear.  Clutching his arms for support, Alice stood on her toes, the heavy boot of her crippled leg blunt enough to hold her though how it ached.  She did not care. She tilted her head back and brushed her lips up against his.

He opened to her, dropping his hands to wrap his arms about her waist so they were separated by nothing more than wool and cotton and lace.  Her tongue shyly found his, and she opened to him in turn so their mouths were lush and soft against each other.

She could feel his erection, suddenly weak legged - she laughed to herself, _weaker_ legged and so in need of him.  The weeks without his tender yet firm authority in their bed, without his beautiful cock filling her emptiness, whilst the pleasure drove all pain from her body, had left her feeling as untouched any virgin.

Turning, Thomas moved backwards, drawing her with him, his hips canted a bit forwards so he could support a bit of her weight, so his penis rubbed insistently against her stomach.  Reaching the wall, he leaned back and pulled her against him so her toes barely touched the ground. Rather than feeling unsteady, Alice laughed at how free she felt in his arms. One hand possessively grasped her bottom so he could angle her upwards and rub that hardness against the top of her cleft.  

The silk she wore, already sodden with her arousal, felt rough and miserable.  She wanted only the silk of his skin against her. That being true, she found herself wanting to have enough purchase to grind against him as well, a needy wildness growing between her legs that she knew would be satisfied by only a lack of tenderness and his stiff member driving into her with all of his best effort.

With effort she separated her legs so she straddled him, the muscle of his thigh giving her the pressure she wanted.  Her bad leg would not let her move as she wished, and she whimpered in frustration.

Thomas, knowing in that way he had of knowing what she required, laughed against her mouth, “Alice, my sweet wife, I should take you to our bed and worship you for days, but I think you need something else.  Shall I tup you against the wall like a Granby St. prostitute? Use you for myself and make you weep upon my cock all helpless and begging?”

Alice’s head flooded with images of what they would look like, of how he would strain against her, how her good leg would wrap about his lean hips, his cock alone freed to do its work.  Her head fell back as she panted, her whole body burning beneath those layers and layers of clothing, her cunt swollen and prickling and flooded.

A sharp pinch to her nipple opened her eyes to where Thomas looked at her, almost glared at her.  “Answer me, _ma vie_ ,” he commanded.

She nodded and babbled and stuttered, words not wanting to form on her thick tongue, that wished only to lick him, “Ye-yes, Thomas, yes, please, yes -”

Her words were cut off with a small wail as he turned, lifting her so her back was to the wall, her skirts hiked roughly up, the opening of her knickers was torn wider, and two of his fingertips swiped leisurely back and forth along her slit, gathering wet and making noises of approving appreciation.  When he barely grazed her clitoris she writhed and tried to fight him to move again to that touch. He pressed a kiss to her cheek and murmured, “My poor love. I know..” he crooned, “I know… I need it too…”

When he moved his hand away Alice sobbed at the loss, until she could feel him working to loosen his cock, “Put your good leg about me.  I shan't ever drop you,” he promised. Between her legs, she could feel him rubbing the broad, blunt head against her.

The effort to lift her uninjured limb and wrap it about his waist was rewarded quickly.  Thomas, for all of his gifts and experience, was nearly as uncontrolled as she when he felt her spread and open.  With a scoop of his hips, he entered her, the size of him and the pressure of the wall and his arms and her own body stealing her breath for a moment.  It hurt as it had not since they had first been together, as they were re-acquainted in the most private of places.

For a moment he did not move, his forehead resting on hers.  He kissed her softly, “I love you Alice. You are all of the world to me, my love.  Nothing will ever separate us again - not the world, not my past, not my stupid, stubborn need to hide.  If you love me a quarter so much as I love you I will be the most loved of all men.”

She kissed him back.  He could never, would never, know how much she loved him, though that would not stop her from working always to teach him better.  

Then he pulled away, and gave her a sneer, his eyes cool yet avid, “And now, I am going to fuck you raw, sweet girl.”

His hips retreated, and then he thrust in again, once, hard, before setting a punishing pace, all of the while watching her, observing, each gasp of her open mouth, the growing flush of her body, her eyes that when they started to close he would startle open again with another pinch, to her nipple, her clit, her backside, so her cunt throbbed hungrily in time with the steady, harsh pounding of his length into it.  

She tried to speak, she had no words, the pressure of him in and out of her driving all thought and breath from her and when her hips started to circle helplessly he growled encouragement, “Good girl, take what you need.  Every inch of me, rub your pearl against me, squeeze me with your hungry little cunt.”

His words were crude and they made her wetter, they seemed, should it be possible, to make him harder as well.  

With a growl, his eyes now hot, he pulled back so her shoulders barely touched the wall and he pushed her body back and forth on his cock, using her to fuck himself, seemingly uncaring as to her pleasure that grew and yet whose ending was elusive, seemingly always one more thrust or shiver away.

With nothing to hold onto, Alice’s hands lay flat on the wall, her nails digging into the wallpaper, her mouth now hanging open as his thrusts caused sound after sound to escape her - wails, moans, gasps, and finally sobs as the need to find her completion became agony.

Thomas, seemingly having brought her to the distress he longed for her to feel, reached between them so her body was precariously balanced, and so very gently circled her clitoris, pressing just the smallest bit, and whispered, “Come for me, Alice.  I have you. You have me.”

They convulsed as the orgasm that had run from her was suddenly there, making her hips arch against him, pulling him deeper, biting, as he pressed harder, angling up to find more places that might madden her and cause the thoughtless, brilliance in her head to go on and on, so she only existed in that place where they were joined.

Three final, rough, mindless thrusts brought Thomas to his own completion, her name a strangled cry from between his clenched lips.  He stepped into it so she was again pinned fully to the wall as he gracelessly humped and squeezed her as he was wracked and emptied.  

For a space of countless ragged breaths they stayed like that.  She trapped, impaled, gloriously limp, he also trapped, sated, with tears leaking from his eyes and on to her neck where they rolled down into her bodice.

“Did I hurt you?” he whispered, his face still buried against her.

“Only in the best way.”

With as much care as possible, he pulled out of her and then set her on her feet, a hand still on her arm should she start to falter.  He looked down at her, his face open and wondering.

Alice reached up and touched his face.  “I love you Thomas. Not only your beauty, or your gifts as my lover, though they are part and parcel of you and therefore to be loved, just as your past is.  And so I love it for making you who you are, even as I hate it for all of your pain.”

His legs gave out, and when he clutched at her skirts like a supplicant, Alice shook her head and lowered herself to him, the twinges of pain ignorable, as she took him into her arms and they sat on the floor, breathing each other in for longer than they ever knew.

 

...After her husband’s death in 1974 Lady Alice retired from public life but not from her work as an artist.  In addition to some of the most famous canvas of her career - particularly The Daughters, and A Garden of Earthly Unhappiness - she became an avid amateur photographer, specializing in candid street scenes.  Some of them in neighborhoods in Chicago and London that would seem dangerous for a wealthy, elderly, disabled woman. Her fearlessness was rewarded with some stunning images, several of which were later the basis for some smaller paintings done in her final years.

When Lady Alice gave her last interview shortly before her death, she famously said, “My life is really no one’s business but my own.  If you have questions look to my work. What I am willing to share is there. Now go away. Thomas is waiting for me, and I am tired of all of these delays.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone for reading, for staying with me through this long process, especially my beloved beta, Caffiend, who has kept me writing this story even when there were times that it was the last thing I wanted to do.

**Author's Note:**

> The term cripple is not meant to be an insult, but is used as it would have been in the Edwardian era. My apologies if anyone is offended, as it is not my intent.


End file.
